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University  of  Manitoba 
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derniire  page  qui  comporte  une  empreinte 
d'Impression  ou  d'lllustration,  soit  par  le  second 
plat,  salon  le  cas.  Tous  les  autres  exemplaires 
originaux  sont  film«s  en  commenpant  par  la 
premiere  page  qui  comporte  une  empreinte 
d'impression  ou  d'lllustration  et  en  terminant  par 
la  derniire  page  qui  comporte  une  telle 
empreinte. 

Un  des  symboles  suivants  apparaitra  sur  la 
derniire  Image  de  cheque  microfiche,  selon  le 
cas:  le  symbole  — ♦»  signifie  "A  SUIVRE",  le 
symbole  V  signifie  "FIN  ". 

Les  cartes,  planches,  tableaux,  etc.,  peuvent  «tre 
filmds  A  des  taux  de  reduction  diffdrents. 
Lorsque  le  document  est  trop  grand  pour  etre 
reproduit  en  un  seul  cllch«,  II  est  film*  i  partir 
de  I'angle  supirieur  gauche,  de  gauche  it  droite, 
et  de  haut  en  bas,  en  prenant  le  nombre 
d'Images  n*cessaire.  Les  diagrammes  suivants 
illustrent  la  mdthode. 


1 

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6 

MICROCOPY    RESOlbHON    TKT   CHART 

ANSI  nt-d   ISO  TEST  CHART  No    2 


1.0 


I.I 


1.25 


^m  iiiiiM 


2.2 


136 


|40  mil  2.0 


1.8 


1-4     nil  1.6 


^     APPLIED  IfVMGE     Inc 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


BY 

FRANK  BUFFINGTON  VROOMAN, 
B.Sc.(Oxon.),  F.R.G.S. 

AuUwr  of  Theodore  Rooievelt,  Dynamic  Geographer 


OXFORD    UNIVERSITY    PRESS 

AMERICAN   BRANCH 

35  WEST  3  2ND  STREET 
NEW  YORK 


|■<|^^■RI(,nT  I,,,  m- 

oxFoKi,  i-.vi\i:rsit\    trkss 

.\Mi;k:c.w  uram  ii 


f 


TO  ONK 

IN    WHOM    I    Il.Wr.   FOUND 

THAT    RAKKST    OF    COMHIN ATION'S 

A  liAKiNG  IMA(UNATin.\  ANT)  A  (  ONSKKVATIVK  J  L'OGMENT 

MV   IlkOTIIKR 

CA!M.  VI-OOMA.\ 


CONTENTS 


Prefncf '*o» 

LttttT  of  Introduction ' 

Foreword 9 

«3 

Book  I.  Tm,  P.iiloscpmv  or  Ishmael 
I.  Political  Chaos 

H.   Ethics  and  Individualism      '' 

mI'  l^''  ^•'Paration  of  Ethics  from  Economic. 11 

,,    Ir^  Separation  of  Ethic*  from  Politic.  ,* 

V    The  Rise  of  the  Democracy  of  Individuali.m k* 

V  I.  Spint  of  Jacobinism  ' 

'5 

Book  II.  The  Philosophv  of  tub  Common  Good 

1.  Politics  Hnd  Kthics 

II.  The  Greek  Contribution  to  Politics '*"! 

III.  Paternalism "'* 

IV.  Socialism '37 

v.  The  Individual  and  Political  Environment !*f 

VI.  Foundations  of  Nationalism  '  ' 

'73 

Book  III.  The  Democracy  of  Nationalism 

I.  The  Old  Issue 

II.  Nationality  and  the  Public  Domain '" 

III.  Nationality  and  Internal  Improvements.  .  .  .  .' 1" 

IV.  Back  to  the  People ' 

V.  A  Word  about  Sovei«iunty. * 

VI.  The  NationalParty  '*' 

VII.  To  Sum  It  Up '" 

Epilogue  .... 

»»3 


PREFACE 

The  reader  will  observe  that  this  volume  is  neither  a 
treatise  nor  a  collection  of  essays.  The  result  of  the 
leisure  hours  of  many  busy  days,  the  author  has  decided 
to  let  it  go  forth  with  all  its  repetition  of  phrase  and 
idea,  which,  while  doing  violence  to  his  literary  tastes, 
he  hopes  has  not  been  overdone  in  his  effort  to  emphasize 
a  few  fundamental  principles. 

The  author  desires  to  acknowledge  his  obligations  to 
his  brothers.  Rev.  Hiram  Vrooman  (Author  of  "Religion 
Rationalized")  and  Mr.  Carl  S.  Vrooman  (Author  of 
"American    Railway    Problems,"    Oxford    University 
Press,  etc.),  for  their  helpful  criticisms;  as  well  as  to 
Professor   Charles   A.    Beard    (Columbia   University). 
Perhaps  here  it  will  not  be  out  of  place,  in  behalf  of 
his  brother,  the  late  Walter  Vrooman,  Founder  of  Rus- 
kin  College,  Oxford,  for  the  author  to  extend  to  Profes- 
sor Beard  for  his  assistance  in  that  great  movement 
those   public   acknowledgments   of   appreciation   which 
his  tragic  and  untimely  death  has  made  forever  impos- 
sible.    For  of  all  the  men  Walter  Vrooman  gathered 
around  himself  at  Oxford  a  dozen  years  ago,  the  writer 
personally  knows,  there  was  no  one  to  whose  zeal  and 
abilities  he  attributed  so  much  as  to  those  of  Professor 
Beard. 

Washington,  D.  C,  July  4,  191 1. 


LETTER  OF  INTRODUCTION 

To  Anglo-Saxon  Youth  : 

Young  men  and  women  of  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States,  this  century  belongs  to  you.  It  will  be 
what  you  make  it.  There  is  something  fundamentally 
wrong  in  the  civilization  to  which  we  were  born.  If 
you  do  not  make  it  right  it  never  will  be  righted,  for 
something  is  being  crystallized  in  the  social  melting  pot 
and  soon  will  be  precipitated  once  for  all — at  least  so 
far  as  this  new  world  epoch  is  concerned  upon  which  we 
are  now  entering.  Your  opportunity  to-day  is  like  the 
White  Steed  with  hoofs  of  lightning  in  the  Arab's  fable. 
It  will  pass  your  way  but  once. 

If  my  observations  have  been  to  the  point,  they  assure 
me  that  those  of  you,  mostly,  who  have  your  ideals  left — 
whom  the  "New  Paganism"  has  passed  over  and  left 
unscathed — are  in  little  sympathy  with  that  era  of  revo- 
lution and  disintegration  which  is  now  coming  to  a  close 
— the  era  of  individualism — and  which  must  come  to  a 
close  if  the  British  Empire  and  the  American  Republic 
are  to  endure — if  the  world-supremacy  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  is  to  be  maintained. 

The  question  of  national  survival  is  offensive  to  the 
egotisms  of  our  race.  Commercial  journalism  and  vaude- 
ville literature  and  candidates  for  office  avoid  it.  But  the 
sur\'ival  of  our  nations  on  any  terms  recognizable  to 
posterity  as  the  states  our  fathers  founded  and  died  to 

9 


J 


lO 


LETTER  OF  INTRODUCTION 


found  them  so,  depends  upon  the  democracy  of  national- 
ism superseding  the  democracy  of  individualism,  and 
whether  your  patriotism  prompts  you  to  give  as  much 
as  your  fathers  gave. 

Are  we  not  by  this  time  sure — those  of  us  who  have 
dreamed  that  this  world  might  be  made  a  better  place  to 
live  in— that  the  selfish  instinct  and  brute  force  of  the 
prehistoric  man-beast  on  which  our  Politics  and  Eco- 
nomics are  frankly  founded,  and  in  which  are  imbedded 
all  democracies  of  individualism,  are  fundamentally  and 
irretrievably  wrong?  Are  we  not  to  be  more  than  wit- 
nesses of  the  passing  of  the  civilization  of  the  Ishmaelite 
and  its  sullen  gospel  of  anarchy  and  rapine  and  strife? 

There  is  something  the  matter  with  the  man  who  is 
satisfied  with  the  world  as  it  is  and  has  been ;  who  can- 
not see  that  too  much  of  the  whole  life  struggle  of  the 
human  race  has  been  given  to  the  bare  maintenance  of 
physical  existence ;  a  game  for  the  vast  majority  hardly 
"worth  the  candle."    Christian  civilization  cannot  be  said 
to  have  penetrated,  to  say  nothing  of  having  permeated, 
a  system  which  requires  of  the  vast  majority  of  the 
human  race  that  virtually  all  the  conscious  hours  of  life 
be  given  up  for  insufficient  food  and  clothes  and  place 
to  sleep.    If  labor  is  the  sole  reward  of  a  life  of  unremit- 
ting toil;  if  over  and  above  all  this  hangs  the  two-edged 
sword  of  Damocles  in  the  certainty  of  no  better  and 
the  uncertainty  of  as  good;  if  phantoms  of  weakness, 
pauperism,  disease,  and  death  lie  in  ambush  in  the  road 
ahead  for  myriads  of  your  brothers  and  sisters  and  mine, 
young  man  and  young  woman,  and  if  you  are  still  satis- 
fied with  the  world  as  you  find  it,  that  which  is  distinctly 


LETTER  OF  INTRODUCTION 


II 


human— certainly  every  vestige  of  the  divine — has  been 
left  out  of  your  nature,  and  you  would  better  close  this 
book  here,  for  you  will  never  be  able  to  understand  it. 

Let  us  hope  that  we  are  at  the  beginning  of  a  new  era, 
for  we  are  certainly  at  the  end  of  an  old  one.  There 
is  a  new  spirit  abroad.  It  is  not  merely  reaction,  nor 
reform.  It  is  renaissance.  Anglo-Saxon  youth  is  wak- 
ing to  new  ideals,  embracing  a  new  chivalry,  embarking 
on  a  new  crusade.  There  is  a  new  ideal  and  a  new  faith. 
Give  these  a  chance.  Science  will  take  care  of  itself. 
The  emphasis  this  moment  belongs  on  Soul,  not  Things. 
With  our  transitional  age  rent  wide  open  in  the  cata- 
clysms of  readjustment — the  spirit  of  man  limping  so 
far  behind  his  advance  in  material  achievement — who 
would  not  lose  faith  in  that  new  all-sufficiency,  that  new 
infallibility  called  science?  The  spirit  of  man  must 
master  science  or  science  will  destroy  the  spirit  of  man. 
A  generation  ago  we  were  afraid  it  would  disprove  Gene- 
sis and  make  atheists  of  us.  There  is  a  greater  menace. 
Is  it  not  making  materialists,  and  will  not  this  make 
atheists  of  us?  The  spirit  of  this  age  is  openly  and  pro- 
fessedly pagan.  Our  ethics  and  economics  and  Politics 
are  founded  on  interests,  not  principles.  The  spirit  of 
the  age  is  a  spirit  of  open  and  unblushing  self-aggran- 
dizement. This  boasted  twentieth  century  world  of  ours 
is  a  world  of  Things.  The  best  elements  of  human  life 
are  being  suffocated  in  Things.  Our  morale  is  so  low 
that  we  have  sought  to  achieve  success  by  any  means 
which  could  be  made  to  appear  legal,  and  have  thought 
no  shame  of  a  business  system  based  frankly  on  an 
illimitable  greed ;  or  of  a  Politics  on  the  same  foundations 


12  LETTER  OF  INTRODUCTION 

without   the    fundamental  consideration   of    right   and 
wrong. 

What  this  century  is  to  be  depends  on  you.    The  future 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  depends  on  what  this  century 
makes    it.      We    cannot    survive    individualism.      The 
future  belongs  to  the  or/anized  races  of  mankind.     Let 
us  adopt  a  philosophy  of  life  which  will  allow  us  to  get 
together.     We  are  all  more  or  less  lonesome.     Let  us 
have   a   social    philosophy   without   socialism.      Let   us 
understand  that  more  good  may  be  wrought  by  working 
together  for  tlie  same  thing  than  by  working  against  each 
other  for  the  same  thing.    Let  us  know  that  if  ever  there 
is  to  be  "peace  on  earth,"  there  must  first  be  "good 
will  toward  men."     Let  us  entertain  great  ideals  and 
seek  great  aims.    We  are  no  longer  doers  of  great  deeds. 
We  are  makers  of  great  trades.    Where  once  were  heroes 
are  money  heaps,  degeneracies  and  decay.     Great  deeds 
may  be  wrought  again  where  luxury  and  idleness  walk 
hand  in  hand  to-day.     The  spirit  of  our  fathers  may 
return— the  spirit  which  founded  great  nations,  fought 
great  battles,  bequeathed  great  principles,  recorded  great 
deeds,  registered  great  prayers.     Where  George  Wash- 
ington carried  the  surveyor's  compass  through  the  path- 
less woods  and  started  the  advancing  hosts  of  American 
:onquerors  over  the  Alleghanies,  what  have  we  to-day? 
Pittsburg ! 

Where  the  land  is  dim  from  tyranny 

There  tiny  pleasures  occupy  the  place 

Of  glories,  and  of  duties :  as  the  feet 

Of  fabled  fairies  when  the  sun  goes  down 

Trip  o'er  the  ground  where  wrestlers  strove  by  day. 

The  Author. 


'•Disthu/Hishcd  German  philosophers  who  may  acci- 
dentally east  a  glance  over  these  pages  zvill  superciliously 
shrug  their  shoulders  at  the  mcagerness  and  incomplete- 
ness of  all  that  zMch  I  here  offer.    But  they  will  be  kind 
enough  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  little  which  I  say  is 
expressed  clearly  and  intelligently,  whereas  their  ozvn 
zvorks.  although  very  profound— unfathomably  profound 
—very  deep—stupenduously  deep— are  in  the  same  de- 
gree unintelligible.     Of  zvhat  benefit  to  the  people  is  the 
grain  locked  aivay  in  the  granaries  to  which  they  have 
no  key?    The  masses  are  famishing  for  hwzdedge  and 
zvill  thank  me  for  the  portion  of  intellectual  bread,  small 
though  it  be,  zvhich  I  honestly  share  zvith  them.    I  believe 
it  is  not  lack  of  ability  that  holds  back  the  majority  of 
German  scholars  from  discussing  religion  and  philosophy 
in  proper  language.    I  believe  it  is  a  fear  of  the  results 
of  their  ozvn  studies  zvhich  they  dare  not  communicate 
to  the  masses.    I  do  not  share  this  fear,  for  I  am  not  a 
learned  scholar;  I  myself  am  of  the  people.     I  am  not 
one  of  the  seven  hundred  zvisc  men   of  Germany.     I 
stand  zvith  the  great  nias.^cs  at  the  portals  of  their  zvis- 
dom.    And  if  a  truth  slips  through,  and  if  this  truth  falls 
m  my  zvay.  then  I  zvrite  it  zvith  pretty  letters  on  paper, 
and  give  it  to  the  compositor,  zvho  sets  it  in  leaden  type 
and  gives  it  to  the  printer;  the  latter  prints  it  and  then 
if  belongs  to  the  zvhole  ti-orW."— Heine,  Religion  and 
Pliilosophy. 


rj 


BOOK  I 
THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ISHMAEL 


15 


CHAPTER   I. 

POLITICAL   CHAOS 

The  chaos   reigning  over  Anglo-Saxon   Politics  to- 
day is  a  pathetic  commentary  upon  the  vanity  of  all 
human   hopes.      We   find   everywhere   democracy   dis- 
credited and  a  disappointment,  and  liberalism  bankrupt, 
and  that  after  all  the  millennial  dreams  of  the  eighteenth 
and  nineteenth  centuries.     Everywhere  we  see  simul- 
taneously, in  the  old  world  and  the  new.  liberalism  leap- 
ing with  starving  avidity  upon  the  program  of  socialism, 
with  no  justification  in  logic  and  with  no  excuse  but 
its  own  sterility  and  emptiness.     In  England  it  is  Cob- 
denism,  which  represents  the  democracy  of  ir         ual- 
ism  and  lahscc  fairc,  abandoning  the  principle^     /hich 
once  made  it  a  rationally  consistent  (for  it  never  was 
a  consistently  rational)  political  creed,  for  a  program  of 
socialistic  opportunism.     The  only  difference  between 
British  Liberalism  and  its  present  tendencies,  and  British 
socialism  and  its  present  status,  is  that  socialism  is  built 
in   the    foundations    of   principles    consistent    with    its 
articles,  whereas  modern  liberalism  issues  a  propaganda 
whose  articles  are  founded  on  che  principles  of  neither 
individualism  nor  socialism.     This  political  melange  is 
a  sorry  commentary  on  the  intelligence,  or  on  the  sin- 
cerity, of  modern  British  liberal  statesmen. 

In  the  United  States  it  is  the  self-styled  JefTersonian 
democrats  who,  in  the  very  moment  of  shouting  for  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  (which  they  still  consider, 

17 


,8  THE  NEW  POLITICS 

by  the  wav.  a  political  issue),  abamlon  ever>-  principle  of 
the  iiKliviilualisin  which  gave  it  birth  atul  clamor  for  an 
extension  of  national  Roverninent  to  a  degree  even  un- 
dreamed of  by  Alexarder  Hamilton— extending  JefTer- 
son's  theory  of  a  national  government,  which  he  de- 
clared must  be  a  department  for  foreign  affairs  only, 
to  the  extent  of  government  ownership  of  radroads. 
Whether  this  is  a  puerile  abandonment  of  every  vestige 
of  political  theory,  and    every  safeguard  of  political 
principle,  or  a  shameless  opportunist  appeal  to  catch  the 
pjpular  "ote.  it  is.  in  either  ca  c.  a  pathetic  spectacle  and 
illustrates  the  inadequacy  of  individualism  as  a  workmg 
theory  of  life.    How  rapidly  the  world  is  drifting  away 
from  the  theories  of  Rousseau,  that  organization  is  a 
blunder  and  civilization  a  crime,  and  of  Adam  Smith,  of 
the  essential  harmony  of  discord,  may  be  seen  by  the  way 
the  loudest  professors  of  these  doctrines  are  turmng  to 

socialism.  . 

Anglo-Saxon  Politics  is  opportunist  and  destitute  of 
a  guiding  principle.  Starting  off  over  a  hundred  years 
ago  with  the  negative  idea  that  we  should  keep  just  as 
near  anarchy  as  possible  and  still  have  an  excuse  for  a 
government,  we,  the  American  contingent,  have  blun- 
dered along  making  such  headway  as  was  necessary  to 
a  race  which  blind  luck  had  given  the  best  chances  in 
the  history  of  humanity;  making  such  progress  as  we 
could  not  well  avoid  because  of  our  geographical  and 
economic  position. 

Neither  England  nor  America  enjoys  the  luxury  of 
solitude  in  its  political  confusions.  The  whole  Anglo- 
Saxon  world  presents  a  political  chaos,  in  which  all 


POLITICAL  CH  vOS 


19 


parties  are  indiscriminately  mixed;  devoid  of  any  funda- 
metital  line  of  cleavage  and  iutiocent  of  the  very  sus- 
picion of  a  first  principle. 

We  arc  brought  to  face  the  indisputable  fact  that 
laissec  fairc  liberalism  is  inadequate  to  tlie  necessities  of 
twentieth  century  politics,  or  to  any  national  life  in  its 
foreign  relations  or  its  domestic  concerns. 

If  there  is  to  Iw  an  .Anglo-Saxon  hereafter,  the  day  has 
come  for  something  more  than  the  political  opportunist. 
We  must  understand  that  the  party  boss  is  a  traitor  to 
his  country,  and  that  there  is  just  now  no  treason  more 
worthy  dire  and  summary  doom  than  the  selfish  program 
of  the  individ^'alist. 

I  challenge  i  •  pretensions  of  the  modern  individualist, 
Republican  or  Democrat :  the  hisses  faire  liberal  whose 
latitudinarianism  is  sufficiently  spacious  to  engulf  a 
socialistic  program.  I  challenge  his  right  to  political 
leadership  on  the  ground  that  he  himself  does  not  know 
where  he  stands;  that  there  is  fundamental  and  irre- 
mediable antagonism  between  his  policies  and  his  politics ; 
that  his  inherent  and  opportunist  ideas,  the  best  of  which 
are  without  root  in  any  rational  system,  have  been  sown 
into  such  a  jungle  of  political  undergrowth  as  to  unfit 
him  for  serious  leadership  in  any  national  or  imperial 
crisis. 

Politically,  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples  have  instinctively 
felt  where  they  could  not  see  their  way.  They  have 
groped  blindly  toward  a  saner  future,  toward  a  juster 
social  environment,  and,  to  a  limited  extent,  have  actually 
incorporated  into  their  national  institutions  certain  great 
principles  which  they  have  not  yet  recognized  as  such. 


20 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


We  have  made  one  great  blunder,  and  that  is,  in  the 
assumption  that  the  world  of  politics  is  a  chance  world 
and  not  built  in  law  and  order ;  that  it  is  a  hisses  faire 
world  over  which  is  written,  "Abandon  reason  all  ye 
who  enter  here." 

There  is  no  political  science  in  America  far  separated 
from  the  science  of  demagogj- — of  manipulating  shib- 
boleths and  news])apers,  and  controlling  those  forces 
which  control  public  oi)inion — which  fills  public  office 
with  men  and  clothes  men  with  power,  and  too  often 
prostitutes  power  to  tyranny. 

We  have  come  to  a  point  in  the  history  of  the  United 
States  when  we  can  foresee  the  ilestruction  of  our  lib- 
erties. The  failure  of  the  democracy  of  individualism  is 
registered  in  the  multibillionaire. 

"Felix  qui  potuit  rcriim  cognosccrc  caitsas,"  quoth 
Virgil. 

The  time  has  come  for  some  fundamental  thinking. 
We  must  go  straight  back  to  first  principles  and  reex- 
amine and  restate  our  political  creed. 

Frankly,  we  are  getting  tired  of  hiisscs  faire — the 
Ishmaelite  theory  of  a  free  scramble  with  every  man's 
hand  against  his  brotlier.  We  may  see  all  over  the  ci\il- 
ized  world  to-day  a  drift  away  fmrn  the  individualism 
and  anarchy  of  the  cighteentli  century — a  movement  in 
every  realm  of  liuman  tliou.^ht  and  action  toward 
coordination,  combination,  organization,  socialization. 
There  is  a  danger  that  this  movement  may  proceed  too 
far.  In  politics  this  would  plunge  us  into  socialism.  The 
world  is  growing  weary  of  individualism  and  lonely  in 
its  unsocial  life  and  thought.     It  is  quite  certain  we  are 


POLITICAL  CHAOS 


21 


through  with  the  revoUitioiiary  ideas  of  the  eigliteenth 
century.  It  is  not  at  all  certain  we  will  not  go  to  the 
other  extreme.  We  have  seen  in  the  nineteenth  century 
the  movement  away  from  laisscs  fairc  and  toward 
nationality  in  Germany,  France,  Italy,  Switzerland,  Great 
Britain,  and  United  States.  But  there  is  another  world- 
movement  alongside  it,  and  that  is  socialism. 

In  the  Anglo-Saxon  world  the  reaction  from  individ- 
ualism is  toward  socialism. 

The  question  arises,  can  we  not  find  a  middle  ground 
common  to  what  is  true  in  both  these  antithetic  systems, 
excluding,  as  far  as  possible,  what  is  false  in  both,  in 
what  might  be  called  the  democracy  of  nationalism — a 
nationalism  which  is  really  democratic,  and  which  is  at 
the  same  time  rational,  ethical,  and  efficient,  a  national- 
ism based  on  the  idea  that  the  state  has  an  etliical  foun- 
dation and  a  moral  mission?  That  the  state  is  a  mere 
contrainion  devised  for  the  protection  of  "vested 
interests";  for  securing  a  laisscs  fairc  competition  to 
guarantee  a  free  field  in  which  the  strong  and  cunning 
prey  upon  the  weak  is  a  conception  which  is  losing  its 
hold  upon  the  humaner  elements  of  mankind. 

The  American  people  need  a  reexamination  of  their 
political  faith,  a  realignment  of  political  parties.  There 
is  no  evidence  that  our  "statesmen"  will  essay  this  task. 
Has  not  the  time  come  for  some  one  at  least  to  raise  the 
question?  Is  it  not  time  to  strike  a  new  note,  to  insist 
upon  finding  a  fundamental  political  idea,  to  discover  an 
elemental  line  of  cleavage,  if  there  be  such,  between  the 
two  great  political  parties?  Is  there  anywhere  ground 
for  hope  of  a  realignment  of  parties  along  the  line  of 


22 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


cleavage,  which  appears  more  or  less  distinctly  from  the 
beginning  of  American  Politics  to  the  present  day;  of 
abandoning  the  selfish  and  whimsical  opportunism  which 
constitutes  the  center  and  circumference  of  American 
political  life  and  building  toward  a  sound  and  rational 
future,  toward  an  ethical  and  constructive  democracy, 
on  the  basis  of  a  few  principles  whose  value  has  been 
amply  demonstrated  in  a  century  and  a  third  of  our 
national  existence?  Shall  we  have  a  political  philosophy 
in  this  country?  If  so  shall  it  be  also  an  ethical 
philosophy?  Is  there  enough  moral  fiber  among  us  to 
shift  the  foundations  of  American  Politics  from  interests 
to  principles?  Are  we  capable  of  rising  above  the  plane 
of  profit  and  loss?  Are  we  completely  besotted  in  our 
selfishness,  or  have  we  sufficient  intelligence  to  serve  as 
a  clearing  house  for  fir=t  principles?  Dare  we  hope  that 
the  riot  and  anarchy  of  self-interest,  the  void  )f  reason 
and  ethic  which  prevails  in  our  political  machines,  plat- 
forms, speeches,  and  bosses  shall  give  way  to  a  succinct 
challenge  of  principles  under  which  issues  will  take  care 
of  themselves? 

Shall  we  meet  the  twentieth  century  issue  squarely  in 
the  approaching  titanic  struggle  between  the  democracy 
of  individualism  and  the  democracy  of  ethical  and  con- 
structive statecraft? 

The  first  thing  we  want  is  our  fundamental  idea.  For 
behind  political  policies  is — or  ought  to  be — a  rational 
Politics.  And  behind  a  theory  of  political  association 
is  a  theor>'  of  life.  And  the  fundamental  fault  in 
American  Politics  is  the  American  theory  of  life,  and 
that  theory  of  life  is  egoism,  individualism,  breaking 


POLITICAL  CHAOS  23 

out    now    as    commercialism,    now    as    financialism— 
always  materialism. 

We  have  played  all  the  variations  on  freedom  and 
equality,  individual  liberty,  natural  rights.     These  hav.; 
become  the  undisputed  theoretical  possession  of  man-     / 
kind.    We  want  a  nev;  viotif.    That  motif  is  the  common 
good. 

We  have  laid  claim  to  all  our  rights  and  some  of  us 
to  more.  Who  wants  to  name  his  duties?  We  have 
harped  on  tlie  phrases  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence until  the  harp  is  out  of  tune.  We  must  turn  to 
the  purposive,  ethical  mission  named  in  the  preamble  to/ 
the  Constitution  "To  promote  the  general  welfare." 

Th?  task  of  the  statesman  of  the  twentieth  century 
is  to  protest  without  calculation  against  the  hell  of  indi- 
vidualism; to  create  a  rational  theory  of  political  asso- 
ciation on  American  and  real  democratic  foundations, 
drag  it  up  from  the  turmoil  of  conflict,  give  it  ethical 
motive  and  rational  form,  and  breathe  into  it  a  spirit 
which  shall  lift  it  to  the  level  of  a  patriotism. 

Our  task  is  to  discover  the  principles  underlying  our 
great  movements,  the  unclassified  upward  struggles  of 
a  mighty  people;  to  be  able  intelligently  to  guide  the 
rebound  of  political  theory  and  practical  statecraft  in  the 
present  and  unmistakable  reaction  from  the  extreme  of 
individualism  to  the  extreme  of  socialism.  To  crush" 
anarchy  and  prevent  socialism ;  to  hew  the  highway 
straight  for  the  middle  way;  to  direct  the  development  ot 
American  Politics  on  safe  and  yet  human  lines — this  is 
our  task. 

The  best  way  of  framing  a  rational  Politics  is  to  begin 


24  THE  NEW  POLITICS 

by  reading  history  backward.     If  we  have  a  nation,  a 
national  hfe,  and  a  national  idea,  national  institutions 
worth  preserving  or  worth  improving,  no  one  will  deny 
the  right  of  search  for  those  principles  which  have  made 
us  a  nation  instead  of  a  bunch  of  feeble  and  warring 
States.    It  is  no  more  difficuU  to  trace  the  history  of  an 
organic  and  rational  Union  back  to  the  atomism  of  Con- 
federation and  State  Rights  than  to  trace  a  rational  and 
orderly  universe  back  to  the  fire  mist.    From  such  a  proc- 
ess we  may  do  more  than  draw  seemly  conclusions.    We 
may    discover    laws    and    principles,    and    they    always 
lie    alongside    law    and    principle.      As    in    physics    or 
astronomy,  so  in  politics.     It  is  scarcely  suffit      t  that 
eacli  expanc'ing  bosom  solemnly  announce  as  law  such 
theories  as  seem  to  him  good.     As  to  first  principles  in 
politics,    history    leaves   the   only    unimpeachable   testi- 
monies.    For  after  all,  there  is  some  truth  in  Freeman's 
favorite  phrase  that  history  is  past  politics  and  politics 
is  present  history. 

Is  there  not  some  abiding  principle  somewhere  out- 
side individualism  and  socialism— outside  unorganized  or 
organized  selfisli  instinct— by  which  we  can  regulate  our 
political  life,  and  wh.  ch  will  oflfer  a  rationale  for  human 
existence  and  present  the  basis  of  an  environment  where 
the  spirit  may  Yve  and  man  may  grow? 

De  Tocqueville  pointed  out  over  two  generations  ago 
that  the  progress  of  democracy  meant  the  final  annihila- 
tion of  those  ties  which  held  together  the  old  regime; 
and  that  anarchy  would  follow  the  disintegrating  process. 
Th'-  is  exactly  what  has  happened,  for  perhaps  in 
America  more  than  in  any  other  country  where  democ- 


POLITICAL  CHAOS 


25 


racy  has  gained  headway,  the  principles  which  brought 
democracy  into  being  have  issued  through  laisscs  faire 
into  a  free-for-all  race  with  no  recognition  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  handicap,  in  which  industrially,  commercially, 
and  financially,  competition  has  at  last  destroyed  or  is 
destroying  itself.  The  principle  as  a  working  theory  of 
life  was  beneficial  to  a  certain  epoch  with  certain  con- 
ditions intolerable  because  things  were  so  bad  that  any- 
thing which  would  destroy  would  benefit.  After  its 
revolutionary  work  was  done,  it  became  a  denial  of  law 
and  order  and  the  rationale  of  law  and  order,  except  as 
law  and  order  were  considered  as  a  very  crude  protec- 
tion of  the  individual  against  violence  aimed  at  his  person 
or  property.  It  was  not  to  the  interest  of  the  exploiter, 
the  financier,  the  politician  (in  the  American  sense  and 
spelled  with  a  small  "p")  to  have  the  weak  protected 
or  to  have  the  devious  methods  of  cunning  subject  to 
the  state  control. 

Thus  democracy  arose  in  individualism,  and  individ- 
ualism in  anarchy,  and  anarchy  is  protest  against  human 
government.  The  democracy  of  individualism  arose 
when  anarchy  compromised  with  such  government  as 
was  considered  a  necessary  evil  and  would  protect  life 
and  property  from  overt  physical  force,  leaving  wide 
open  all  the  approaches  to  cunning,  exploitation,  and 
chicanery.  Here  is  where  the  experiment  of  the  democ- 
racy of  individualism  has  failed  in  every  European 
country,  and  wliere  in  the  Western  Hemisphere  it  stands 
to-day  discredited  and  a  disappointment.  This  is  why, 
the  world  over  to-day,  liberalism  is  bankrupt. 

Out  of  the  existing  confusions  of  prevailing  atomism 


26 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


which  nowhere  contain  the  potency  of  an  ethical  state, 
certain  new  elements  appear,  both  ethical  and  rational, 
which  give  the  promise  of  an  adequate  environment  for 
that  mighty  organism  of  humanity,  whicli  shall  some 
day  do  no  violence  to  the  thought  of  God. 

Tlie  individualism  of  the  eighteenth  century  has  been 
weiglied  and  found  wanting.  Our  ethical  Hedonism  is 
an  inadequate  foundation  for  a  rational  state. 

Professor  Butcher  says  that  the  Epicurean  theory  of 
the  state,  an  association  for  the  protection  of  rights  and 
nothing  more,  "gained  acceptance  in  the  decline  of  Greek 
life  and  was  itself  a  symptom  of  decline,"  and  Lecky 
says  of  it,  tliat  it  has  "proved  little  more  than  a  principle 
of  disintegration  or  an  apology  for  vice."  "Anarchy 
is  the  creed  of  unreason  in  Politics."  says  the  late  Pro- 
fessor Ritcliie,  "and  is  a  political  philosophy  only  in  the 
sense  in  which  absolute  scepticism  may  be  called  a  meta- 
pliysical  system."      f  Natural  Rights,   Pref.) 

The  story  is  told  of  the  boyhood  of  Epicurus,  that, 
with  his  teacher,  he  was  reading  the  lines  of  Hesiod : 

Ihiit  /uv  TzpiuTtaa  A'anf  Y-'-'-'t    "-"'"^P  stzhtu 

A  Oaviirutv 

"Eldest  of  beings,  Chaos  first  arose, 
Thence  Earth  wide  stretched,  the  steadfast  seat  of  all 
The  Immortals." 

The  inquisitive  youth  at  once  asked  his  preceptor, 
"And  Chaos  whence?" 
Whence  Chaos? 
From  Epicurus  I  should  say. 


CHAPTER  II 

ETHICS   AND    INDIVIDUALISM 

There  is  naught  in  these  pages  inteUigible  to  any  man 
with  whom  it  is  not  agreed  at  Jie  outset  that  nothing 
human  can  be  settled  apart  from  the  ethical  con- 
sideration. 

The  problems  of  politi'  j  will  be  held  as  unsolvable 
without  going  back  to  the  everlasting  questions  of  right 
and  wrong  and  rationality.  By  reason  of  their  essential 
nature,  they  invade  those  chaotic  voids  which  individual- 
ism has  bereft  of  law  and  order  and  where  a  state  of 
anarchy  has  left  free  play  for  an  unbridled  scramble  for 
the  wealth,  place,  and  power  of  the  world;  wliere  the 
greeds  and  hatreds  of  men  masquerade  under  the 
unctuous  catchwords  oi  Jacobinism:  "freedom  of  con- 
tract," "free  trade,"  "free  competition,"  "individual  ini- 
tiative," laissec  fairc,  etc.  These  phrases  once  had  a 
meaning.  But  they  no  longer  even  cloak  the  hypocrisy 
and  greed  they  once  tried  to  expose. 

What  we  want  to-day  is  an  ethical  theory  of  politics 
based  on  an  ethical  theory  of  life. 

If  we  agree  to  agree  so  far  with  Kant  that  the  only 
unconditioned  good  in  the  universe  is  the  element  of  good 
will,  we  must  abandon  at  once  the  whole  theory  of  in- 
dividualism, that  "free  competition"  where  the  big  eat 
the  little,  and  both  the  politics  and  economics  which  are 
the  conclusions  of  a  philosophy  of  life  which  justifies 
a  man's  selfishness  to  himself. 

2? 


M 


jS 


Till-:  XKW  POLITICS 


But  tlic  ctliical  form  is  not  enough.  Art  and  Science 
are  powerless  to  accouche  the  new  age  because  tlie  ethi- 
cal objective  is  incomplete  without  its  sjjring  ami  motive 
force,  tlie  ethical  subjective.  Xo  beni,i,Mi  future  lies 
over  the  sensuous  hills  of  ci>lor  and  form,  and  there  is 
no  "surcease  of  sorrow"  fnjm  "man's  inhumanity  to 
man,"  without  the  viial  fountain  of  all  rational  human 
conduct,  the  ctliical  motive  of  ijood  ivill. 

Our  ground  ideas  must  not  only  provide  an  answer 
which  shall  say  why  a  soldier  will  rush  to  death  in 
battle  for  his  country  or  why  men  toil  without  hope 
of  reward,  that  life  may  be  sweeter  for  those  still  unborn, 
but  they  must  somewhere  unfold  a  faitli  puissant  and 
adequate  to  kindle  patriotic  fires  and  inspire  the  spirit 
o:'  liolitical  heroism  once  more.  \\t  must  find  that 
which  not  only  accounts  for  nobility  of  life,  but  which 
cads  it  forth.  Any  political  theory  neglecting  this  elenic-at 
is  false  or  faulty  because  Politics  looks  forward  as  well  as 
backward,  and  considers  the  ought  a^  well  as  *;  e  fact. 

If  we  are  to  solve  our  political  problems,  wx  must 
first  know  what  is  the  matter  with  us.  The  matt**!  with 
us  is  that  our  theory  of  life  dominates  our  politics  and 
economics  and  our  theory  of  life  is  a  slightly  modified 
Epicurean  Hedonism,  egoism,  atomism,  anarchy. 

The  most  of  us  are  too  old  in  heart  if  not  too  old  in 
years  to  face  the  present  economic  anarchy  with  an 
ethical  ideal  and  a  principle  and  a  point  of  view.  Shall 
the  present  "moral  wave"  sweep  over  this  country,  then 
blow  out  a  stop  cock  and  escape  in  hissing  steam?  Is 
it  any  more  than  a  craze  ?  Will  it  last  longer  and  accom- 
plish   more    than    our    mad,    national    enthusiasm    for 


ETHICS  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 


29 


I 


Trilby's  foot  or  Teddy's  bear?  We  Americans  are 
mercurial.  We  do  not  hold  form  or  heat.  Just  now 
we  are  very  angry  because  we  have  been  buncoed  by  a 
set  of  financiers  whom  a  little  while  ago  we  worshiped 
as  certain  gilt  deities  of  a  new  order  of  Golden  Rule. 
Now  we,  the  American  people,  d(j  nut  like  t(j  be  buncoed. 
In  our  indignation  we  resort  at  once  to  writing  a  few 
articles  and  making  a  few  speeches.  Then  when  we 
have  blown  our  blast — lawyers,  preachers,  journalists, 
artists,  professors,  stockholders  and  hired  men  among 
us — we  step  ciieerfully  into  the  procession  again  and 
stand  in  line  with  an  open  and  irritated  palm  behind  our 
back  and  without  batting  an  eye,  take  our  tip  like  a  head 
waiter. 

Let  it  be  made  as  clear  as  possible  just  here  that  no 
one  in  these  days  but  tlie  professional  anarchist  lays 
claim  to  the  theory  of  pure  individualism.  Those  who 
classify  themselves  under  this  category  profess  to  believe 
in  a  highly  modified  article,  and  there  are  as  many  modi- 
fications as  there  are  individualists.  It  is  plain  that  any 
attempt  to  define  them  all  would  lead  to  an  unending 
confusion.  I  beg  to  refer  at  once,  therefore,  to  the  some- 
what brief  and  inadequate  definition  of  individualism  in 
Baldwin's  Dictionary  of  Philosophy  and  Psychology. 

"Individualism  is : 

"(i)   Regard  for  cxclusk'c  or  crccsstTT  self- interest. 

"(2)  The  doctrine  that  the  pursuit  of  self -interest  and 
the  exercise  of  individual  initiative  should  be  little  or  not 
at  all  restrained  by  the  state  and  that  the  function  of 
government  should  be  reduced  to  the  lowest  possible 
terms." 


1 


30  THl-    NEW  POLITICS 

'    The  definition  goes  on  to  state  that  in  ethics  the  term 
is  apphed  to  those  theories  deriving  the  moral  .deal  or 
standard  from  the  individual  man.    I  hope,  however,  the 
contention  will  be  considere<l  fair  for  the  purposes  of 
this  argument  that  individualis.n  must  he  considered  as 
a  -ystem  of  thought-a  philosophy  of  life-which  must 
stand  or  fall  as  a  system  and  not  as  mo.lified  by  tenets 
antagonistic  to  its  main  thesis.    Nevertheless,  .t  may  be 
remembered  that  we  have  here  a  definition  of  not  a  pure 
individualism  but  a  nineteenth  century  article;  one  so 
modified  by  the  experience  of  men  since  the  revolutions 
of  the  eighteenth  century  as  to  distinguish  it  from  pure 
anarchy     As  Professor  Hibben  of  Princeton  has  clearly 
stated  if  "The  theory  of  individualism  in  its  extreme 
^    form  leads  to  anarchy,  which  is  the  reduction  of  govern- 
mental  functions  to  zero." 

He  further  describes  such  an  antithesis  as  is  here 
under  discussion  as    "Social   atomism   opposed   to    the 

social  organism." 

I  fancy  there  are  some  th'ngs  in  which  we  are  all 
better,  and  some  in  which  we  are  all  worse,  than  our 
creeds     But  the  plain  uncorrupted  and  unmodified  theory 
of  the  democracy  of  individualism  presents  that  idea  of 
the  state  whicli  is  simply  the  apotheosis  of  the  policeman. 
This   constitutes   the   "business    theory    of    the    state 
Beyond  the  area  of  the  "beat"  and  the  authority  of  the 
"baton"  this  theory  says  "every  man  for  himself.      The 
weak  perish  and  the  cunning  and  the  strong  survive.    Be- 
cause the  strong  and  cunning  win.  they  ought  to  win.  This 
is  the  essence  of  the  ethics  of  individualism.    Whatever 
there  is  that  is  admirable,  or  indeed  ethical,  in  the  teach- 


ETHICS  AND  INDIVIDUALISM  31 

ings  of  tlie  democracy  of  individualism,  is  where  it  has 
departed  from  the  individuaHstic  motive,  which  is  the 
selfish  instinct,  and  where  it  has  introduced  juster  and 
saner  relations,  in  other  words,  more  rational  and  social 
relations,  among  mankind  in  opn.,«ition  to  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  its  creed. 

The  plain,  brutal  truth  is  that  our  politics  are  founded 
on  interests,  not  principles. 

Here  we  are  fundamentally  wrong— I  mean  ethically 
wrong.  The  criticism  of  Lord  Salisbury  (Oxford 
Essays,  1858)  in  reference  to  British  Politics  is  equally 
applicable  to  our  own.  "No  one  acts  on  principles  or  | 
reasons  from  them."  This  is  a  serious  indictment,  and  > 
it  may  be  applied  to  Anglo-Saxon  Politics  since  the 
century  of  individualism  and  revolution. 

Instead,  we  have,  for  the  most  part,  the  tragedy  of 
the  frank  avowal  of  a  life  philosophy  which  faces  the 
universe  and  attempts  its  riddles  upon  the  simple  propo- 
sition: "What  is  there  in  it  for  me?"  We  have  ex- 
posed the  age  we  live  in  to  a  criticism  as  old  as  Plato's 
restrictions  on  Antisthenes  and  the  Cynics  who 
ignored    all    they    could    not    "grasp    with    teeth   and 

hands." 

It  is  a  sorry  coincidence  that  our  national  life  had  its 
beginning  in  that  era  which,  more  than  any  other  era  of 
recorded  history,  was  fullest  of  the  disintegrating  phi- 
losophy which  was  revolt  against  rationality,  govern- 
ment, architectonic  statecraft.  If.  later,  we  turned  our- 
selves to  constructive  state-building  it  was  only  because 
the  wiser  men  among  the  fathers  found  that  Jacobinism 
offered  no  rational  foundation  for  an  enduring  state; 


3-2 


Till-    NKVV  POLITICS 


and  tlins  one  was  made  out  of  thirteen— surely  an  un- 
lucky number. 

Tlnis  it  came  that  tliis  "business  tIieor\-  of  the  state" 
of  (uirs,  l)asc(I  on  llie  Kpicureati  etln'cs  and  tlieorv  of  life. 


is  tliat  into  whidi 


(in 


r  new  American  nation  was  b 


an( 


1.    as    it    were,    l>a|.tized.      At    bottom 


orn. 


we   are    stil 


Hedonists  in  morals  and  atomists 


s  in  iM)litics.  A  serious 
survey  of  the  sordid  and  pathetic  spectacle  of  American 
Politics— a  calm  perusal  of  the  selfish  and  uiiiiitellifjent 
story  of  American  political  history— will  not  justify  the 
Fourth  of  Jidy  orations  which  have  been  emptied  upon 
them,  nor  tlie  American  Jacobinism  which  is  here  dis- 
closed. 

The  ethics  of  individualistu  has  majjnified  the  acquisi- 
tive instinct.  It  is  tlie  system  winch,  in  justifying  a 
man's  selfishness  to  himself,  has  carried  on  the  work  of 
the  disintcfjration  of  society  and  of  our  political  in.stitu- 
tions  until  our  whole  contribution  of  modern  democracy 
has  been  framed  with  reference  to  the  su^r-ess  and  per- 
petuation of  the  acquisitive  instinct.  A  political  system 
founded  on  interests,  not  princijiles,  can  meet  with  no 
other  fate.  An  economic  system  framed  in  the  interests 
f>f  "economic  man"  which  (one  cann(.t  say  who)  is  simply 
a  covetous  machine,  can  reach  no  other  conclusions  than 
to  present  us  with  one  man  who  owns  or  controls  one- 
eleventh  of  all  tlie  wealth  of  the  richest  nation  the 
world  has  ever  seen.  How  soon  will  he  control  it 
all? 

The  narrow  Hedonists  to  whom  we  owe  our  .tjround 
idea  in  ethics,  economics,  and  politics,  framed  a  strinsj 
of  notions  so  concrenial  to  the  immature  and  unregen- 


ETHICS  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 


33 


eratc  soul  of  man  that  tliev-  have  been  followed  niore 
joyously,  atid  their  teachings  lived  up  to  more  piously, 
tlian  any  other  ethical  system  devised  by  man.  It  is  so 
>im|)lc.  Tliere  is  but  one  ethical  motive — appetite.  /\1I 
iiideavor  is  prompted  by  appetite.  The  desire  for  selfibh 
;,'ratilication  is  the  fount  from  which  all  blessings  flow. 
Ihcre  is  but  one  standard  of  judgment — the  selfish 
opinion  of  an  egoist.  There  is  one  mainspring  of  action 
— tlie  desire  for  one's  own  selfish  gratification.  "What- 
soever, '  quoth  Ilobbes  in  Leviathan,  "is  the  object  of 
any  man's  ai)i)etite  or  desire,  that  it  is  which  he  for  his 
])art  calicth  good,  and  the  object  of  his  hate  and  aversion, 
evil."  My  pleasure  is  my  siiiniiitiin  boniim,  and  as  I 
am  the  only  judge  of  what  I  want,  I  am  the  only  judge 
nf  my  chief  good.  Thus  Ilobbes,  and  his  disciples, 
I-ocke,  Rousseau,  and  all  otlier  Epicureans  and  Utili- 
tarian atomists  and  materialists  before  and  since  his  day. 

Tliis  is  the  prevailing  Anglo-Sa.xon  theory  of  ethics. 
Tliis  is  the  foundation  of  our  politics,  and  economics, 
and  much  of  our  religion.  Tliis  is  the  si!ii;,1e  ethics  of 
individualism. 

The  individualism  of  to-day  is  different  from  what  it 
was  in  the  first  crude  and  barbarous  ebullition  of  its 
youth  simply  and  solely  because  men  found  they  could 
not  hold  society  together  and  lead  the  lives  of  human 
beings  while  allowing  the  selfish  instincts  of  the  strong 
and  cunning  to  run  rampant  and  uncontrolled  by  society. 
Adam  Smith's  contention  that  the  good  of  all  would  some- 
how follow  the  selfish  antagonism  of  each,  soon  found 
itself  enveloped  in  a  halo  of  interrogation  points  in  the 
factory  legislation  and  the  great  masses  of  other  acts 


1 


34 


THE  Xi:\V  POLITICS 


passed  since  liis  day,  every  one  of  whicli  has  llatly  denied 
his   fundamental  (hesis. 

Eigliteenth  century  indivichiahsm  offered  no  otlicr 
standard  of  action  tlian  acquiring  profit  and  esca{)ing 
harm.  It  became  the  principle  of  the  political  philosopliy 
of  the  French  and  luiglish-speaking  peoples,  and  has 
dominated  them  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years.  Hobhes's 
theory  of  the  reduction  of  all  tlie  activities  of  the  human 
will  to  self-preservation  and  self-indulgence,  in  other 
words,  to  a  modern  Epicureanism,  became  the  philo- 
sophical foundation  of  those  forces  of  individualism 
whicli  dominate  whatever  of  political  theory  we  have 
in  America,  showing  itself  in  the  "business  theory  of 
state." 

One  need  not  look  far  to  see  how  the  creed  of  Ben- 
tham,  that  benevolence  must  give  way  to  self-interest;  of 
James  Mill,  that  there  is  no  place  in  a  theory  of  society 
for  a  moral  sense;  of  Malthus,  who  opposed  brute  instinct 
to  benevolence  as  the  foundation  of  ethics  and  of  the  busi- 
ness and  social  order;  of  the  Manchester  school,  which 
brooked  no  legislative  control  of  industrial-commercial 
ra\ening  more  than  maniacal — demoniacal — how  these 
and  other  such  monstrous  beliefs  prevailing  in  a  world 
nominally  Christian  and  really  individualistic,  have  domi- 
nated nineteenth  century  civilization,  and  to  this  day. 
If  the  French  Revolution  was  the  offspring  of 
individualism,  no  less  was  the  commercial  and  industrial 
anarchy  of  England,  which  has  so  much  to  answer  for  in 
dies  tree,  for  every  hollow-eyed  child  of  the  tens  of 
thousands  of  unhappy  children  whose  very  flesh  and  bones 
were  woven  into  the  cotton  fabrics  of  Manchester  and 


ETHICS  AND  INDIVIDUALISM  35 

r.irniin^rliani,  who.se  souls  were  transformed  by  the 
alchemy  of  iiicliviclualisiii  into  the  golden  foundations  of 
l-.ngland's  wealth. 

Bcntham  and  James  X  11,  indectl  tii.-  whole  early  school 
of   laisscc  fairc  econom^ts   and   Radirals,    preached   a 
simple  way  to  the  millei.Mnm.     All  that  kept  humanity 
fp:ni  achieving  it  were  aristocratic  rule  and  monarchic 
Kcvcrnment.      Sweep  these  away  and  place  the  manu- 
facturer and  millionaire  tradesman  in  the  place  of  king 
and  noble,  and  labor  would  be  protected  and  mankind 
would  come  to  its  own.     The  middle  classes  would  guar- 
antee tiie  lower  classes  in  their  rights.    The  younger  Mill, 
seeing  the  miserable  failure  of  these  crude  dreams,  lost 
much  of  his  early  faith  in  democracy ;  i.  e.,  the  democracy 
of  individualism  which  he  grew  to  look  upon  as  \hi 
misrule  of  mediocrity  which  would  crowd  the  higher 
^  irtues  of  mankind  to  the  wall,  enslaved  by  an  insidious 
despotism.     A  dead  weight  of  democratic  conservatism, 
massed  and  bound  in  its  own  inertia,  would,  because  of 
its  own  incapacity  for  framing  a  rational  program,  set 
itself  across  the  path  of  progress  and  keep  the  status 
(j!ii>  by  a  policy  of  veto. 

It  is  greatly  to  die  credit  of  Mill  that  his  defense  of 
utilitarianism  has  done  more  to  undermine  the  system 
tlian  any  other  book  written  in  his  century.  If  he 
accepted  Bentham's  doctrine  of  pleasure  and  pain  he 
transmitted  the  dogma  through  his  own  superb  character 
into  something  totally  different  from  what  Bentham 
actually  taught.  In  a  nutshell.  Mill  taught  that  happiness 
IS  the  result  of  goodness ;  therefore,  the  love  of  pleasure 
IS  the  love  of  virtue;  and,  therefore,  the  pursuit  of  virtue 


■I 


% 


3^' 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


IS  the  pursuit  of  pleasure.    But  Mill,  with  all  his  powers 
of  argument,  has  not  been  able  to  make  real  morality 
subservient  to  Hedonism.     A  system  must  be  judged  by 
us  effect  upon  tlie  masses  of  mankind  and  disinterested 
acts  of  self-sacrifice  will  never  be  done  by  the  masses 
-for  tiie  fun  of  i,."     To  say  that  tlie  patriot  immolates 
himself  on  tiie  ahar  of  his  country  because  it  is  a  pleasure 
to  h.in  IS  to  beg  the  question.    It  is  to  deny  the  existence 
of  a  disinterested  motive.     It  might  be  admitted  tliat 
Morence  Nightingale  or  Clara  Barton  found  more  pleas- 
ure m  ministering  to  human  suffering  than  in  a  life  de- 
voted  to   the  game.   c.   g..   of   social   precedence.      I5ut 
unfortunately   tlie  majority  of  the  human  race   is   not 
constituted  that  way.     Therefore,  the  doctrine  of  pleas- 
ure and  pain-utilitarianism-does  not  mean  the  same 
to  them.     This  d„ctrine  means  to  the  masses  of  mankind 
that  pleasure  is  self-in.hilgence,  and.  to  the  masses  of 
mankind  under  utilitarianism,  self-indulgence  is  erected 
.nto  a  moral  principle.     B.    this  is  assuredly  and  openly 
admitted  by  the  classical  economists  ^vllose  millennium 
hes  m  the  direction  of  each  indivi.h.al  pursuing  his  own 
pleasure:  i.  e.,  the  masses  of  mankin<I  following  blind 
selfish    instincts    instead    of   adopting    an    architectonic 
rational  ethical  idea  which  they  may  erect  into  a  great 
institution  called  a  state. 

Tiie  crucial  point  at  which  the  ethics  of  in.lividual- 
.sm  fails  IS  in  not  distinguishing  between  pleasure  and 
the  object  of  an  action,  or  perhaps  going  further  and 
Identifying  pleasure  with  the  object  of  all  action  and 
affection.  This  reduces  the  motive  of  ethics  to  selfish- 
ness.    This   Hedonism  fails  down  because  it  takes  no 


KTHICS  AND  INDIVIDUALISM  37 

account  of  a  di  interested  affection  or  action.     There  is 
"o  d.st.nct.on  between  the  object  of  an  action  and  the 
peasure  which  accon,panies  the  exercise  of  that  action 
battll      r     ^"^-  >--  ^'-  country.     He  goes  into 
battle  and  gets  hnuself  shot  because  it  gives  pleasure  to 
a  patnot  to  get  hi.nself  shot.    A  man  loves  his  son.    He 
does  tlKngs  for  his  son  because  it  gives  the  father  pleas- 
ure.    Rut  this  is  no  adequate  account  of  patriotic  or 
paternal  love.     Neither  a  home  nor  a  nation  can  be 
budt  upon  .t.    American  Politics  needs  a  new  patriotism 
a.Kl  patnofsm  is  not  possible  under  a  strict  individualist 
theory  of  life. 

Mill  cut  away  the  last  prop  from  the  totcering  utili- 
tanamsm  m  which  he  was  nurtured   in  his  essay  on 
Bentham      After  a  searching  criticism  of  Bentham's 
theory  of  hfe  (which  is  the  first  question  to  raise,  he 
claims    m  regard  to  any  man  of  speculation)  he  shows 
how  httle  It  can  do  for  the  individual.     Then  he  shows 
how  much  less  it  can  do  for  society.     It  will  do  nothing 
for  the  spiritual  interests  of  society  ("except  sometimes 
as  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  some  higher  doctrine"^. 
That  which  alone  causes  any  material  interests  to  exisi 
which  alone  enables  any  body  of  human  beings  to  exist' 
as  a  society,  is  national  character;  that  it  is  which  causes 
a  nation  to  succeed  in  what  it  attempts,  another  to  fail- 
one  nation  to  understand  and  aspire  to  elevated  thin^^s' 
another  to  grovel  in  mean  ones;  which  makes  the  great- 
ness of  one  nation  lasting  and  dooms  another  to  eariy 
and  rapid  decay."  ^ 

Bentham  made  the  mistake  "of  supposing  that  the 
-.ne.s  part  of  human  affairs  was  the  whole  of  them 


busir 


38 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


all  at  least  that  the  legislator  and  moralist  ha.  do 

with. 

Again.  -.  thilosothy  of  hnvs  aud  institutions  not 
founded  on  a  thUosothy  of  national  character  is  an 
absurdity." 

Miirs  statcnient  is  irrefutably  true.     It  is  wliere  the 
whole    school    of    philosophic    radicals    and    orthodox 
econonnsts  nuserably  failed  in  being  unequal  to  framing 
a  theory  of  politics  or  econon.ics  on  any  but  the  founda- 
tions  of  n^aterialism.      Their    fault   was    fundamental. 
Ihcr  theory  of  life  was  wrong.     It  nowhere  contained 
the  elements  necessary  to  a  sound  philosophy  of  national 
character      It  was  incapable  of  supporting  a   rational 
heory  of  national  character  because  it  held  no  rational 
theory  of  individual  character.     The  theory  was   un- 
social.     It    predicated    of    the    state-of    society-of 
liumanity,  so  many  human  units  in  a  state  of  war     It 
denied  the  element  of  good  will.     Each  man  was  trying 
to  get    the  most   pleasure  and   escape   the  n,ost   pain 
This  theory  of  life,  in  short,  was  what  Hobson  calls  "the 
protean  fallacy  of  individualism,  which  feigns  the  exist- 
ence of  separate  individuals  by  abstracting  and  neglect- 
ing the  social  relations  which  belong  to  them  and  make 
them  what  they  are." 

Mill's  growth  is  all  tiie  more  interesting  in  that  the 
Anglo-Saxon  world  has  not  kept  up  with  it.  We  are 
still  as  a  race  groveling  in  the  lairs  of  individualism 
which  this  man  grew  up  in  and  grew  out  of 

Woodrow  Wilson  has  sai.l  In  a  recent  thought- 
ful address  before  the  National  Bar  Association.  "The 
whole  history^  of  liberty  has  been  a  struggle  for  the 


ETHICS  AND  INDIVlDUALISxM  39 

recogtiition  of  rights  not  only,  but  for  the  embodiment 
of  rights  m  law.  in  courts  and  magistrates  and 
assemblies." 

This  is  an  exact  statement  of  the  modern  highest  type 
of  much  modified  individualism.  Where  the  nationalist 
will  take  academic  issue  with  him  is  in  that  lie  nt  'ects 
entirely  the  element  of  reciprocity.  It  is  always  and  only 
rights."  The  nationalist  would  say,  "The  whole  history 
of  freedom  has  been  a  struggle  for  a  recognition  of  rights 
not  only,  but  an  assertion  of  duties,  and  the  embodiment 
ot  obligations  as  well  as  rights  of  both  man  and  nation 
in  law,  in  courts  and  magistrates  and  assemblies." 

This  is  a  statement  of  nationalism,  the  old  and  the 
new. 

It  is  here  that  individualism  fails.     It  neglects  the 
principle  of  reciprocity,  which  is  the  soul  of  sociality 
It  offers  a  declaration  of  rights  and  no  duties,  and  we 
cannot  avoid  the  conclusion  of  Thomas  Hill  Green  that 
"all  rights  are  relative  to  moral  ends  or  duties  " 

This  system  declares  for  all  rights  and  no  duties,  and 
sets  up  boundaries  between  individuals  through  which 
the  gates  swing  but  one  way.  When  the  element  of 
duties  enters  it  means  simply  that  what  the  individual 
does  not  wish  to  be  done  to  himself  he  must  not  do  to 
others.  The  principle  of  ethical  democracy  cncers  in  the 
voluntary  aspect  of  reciprocity,  that  the  reciprocal  law  is 
not  imposed  from  without  but  from  within.  Thus  we 
may  see  that  a  philosophy  of  rights  and  duties,  or  reci- 
procity, ,s  simply  a  realization  (if  only  in  the  ideal) 
of  the  Golden  Rule. 


40 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


The  soul  of  the  democracy  of  altruism  is  reciprocity- 
tl^e  Golden  Rule.     Individualism  is  based  on  the  phi- 
losophy of  hfe,  which  is  a  search  after  happiness  without 
ul.hgafons,  and  this  theory  of  rights,  stated  by  individ- 
ualism, means  every  time,  under  analysis,  brute  suprem- 
acy, and,  behmd  it,  the  sanction  of  might. 
Tiie  weak  perish;  the  strong  win.' 
Individualism,  therefore,  is  the  bulwark  of  the  con- 
tent,on  tl,at  Might  is  Right.     Starting  with  the  proposi- 
.on  ,„  poht.c.  which,  in  economics,  Adam  Smith,  and 
he   other   economists   have   preached    to    the    business 
vorld   for  a  hundred  years,   Hobbes  claimed  that  the 
selfishness  of  many  conduces  to  the  happiness  of  all 
-asm.ch   as  the  state  is   a  machine   for  purposes  o^ 
reahzmg  enhghtened   selfishness.      "Two   conceptions " 
says  Arnold  Toynbee,  "are  woven  into  every  ar^me;t 

of  mdudual  hberty,  and  conviction  that  Man's  self-love 
IS  God  s  providence,  that  the  individual  in  pursuing  his 
own  interest  ,s  promoting  the  welfare  of  all."  It  is  easy 
to  see  that,  if  under  a  political  or  economic  mechanism! 
selfishness  works  toward  good,  selfishness  becomes  a 
moral  principle  and  makes  Might  Right 

But  then  this  is  the  theory  of  laisscc  faire-free  and 
unl,mned_competition,  where  the  strong  or  the  cunning 

memory,  ha,l  adiure.l  hi,  coM  a/ues^Tr  '""P'""""  ^^ich  will  .,o  honor  to  his 
classes,  to  open  bureaux  orcharity.oest^.'.'"^  "rr""'""""  '"^  '°'  °'  '^'-^ng 
arose :   they  passe,i  on  ?I^,      ".'f^^^  workshops  for  labor.     A  low  noise 

to  a  dcclara' on  of  rights      The  p'Zt.  "  '°  •*''  "  ''^^''^^"'°"  "'  "utie! 

.hat    there    were    "  quifbUngs    thercTnw'  "h""  ''>T"'  ^''"'   "'"'^eau  wrote 
Mirabea.  called  a  quibble  was  a  revo.uron"    '    '°"''"'    '^"'^'^•'      ^'"^ 
••  Thus  the  two  doctrines  began  to  separate." 

(Louis  Bhnc.  French  Rtvolution.  vol.  i.  p.  sSi.) 


ETHICS  AND  INDIVIDUALISM  41 

win.  For  if  they  win  it  is  on  the  principle  that  each 
acts  for  his  own  interest,  and  that  the  rtsultant  is  the 
aggregate  of  individual  good,  there  being  no  common 
good.  So  thai  Thomas  Hill  Green's  caustic  criticism  of 
the  theor>-  of  Hobbes  (Principles  of  Political  Obligation, 
P-  370,  par.  47 \  is  unanswerable:  "Where  there  is  no 
recognition  of  a  common  good  there  can  be  no  right  in 
any  other  sense  than  power." 

It  is  the  doctrine  we  are  accustomed  to  under  the 
regime  of  individualism,  in  the  absence  of  ethics  or 
the  possibility  of  etiiics.  under  free  trade  laisscz  faire 
where  the  weak  perish  and  the  strong  or  cunning  win' 
where  the  selfishness  of  the  many  is  the  good  of  the  all' 
This  fundamental  and  false  foundation  of  the  democracy 
of  individualism  makes  two  things  necessary-that 
Might  makes  right  and  that  Progress  is  fortuitous  and 
not  rational. 

I  say  that  this  apotheosis  of  unrestrained  and  irre- 
sponsible greed  called  individualism,  and  which,  reduced 
to  Its  lowest  terms,  presents  self-seeking  as  the  sole 
object  of  the  human  will,  is  the  negation  of  all  ethics  and 
all  religions,  and  is  not  the  motive,  nor  does  it  lie  in 
the  direction  of  the  highest  development  of  the  human 
race. 

That  theory  of  life  called  individualism,  which  has 
ruled  with  scarcely  a  shadow  of  turning  the  life  history 
of  this  planet  for  a  myriad  of  centuries  before  there  ever 
came  a  creature  who  could  frame  a  theory  of  life  is 
only  too  palpably  insufficient  for  a  modern  state,  in' its 
ideal,  Its  motive,  and  its  point  of  view. 

Its  ideal  is  that  each  particular  organism  confined  to 


.#1 


4-' 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


Its  particular  torso  shall  manage  to  thrill  to  as  many  as 
possible  pleasurable  sensations  (and  as  few  painful  ones) 
before  m  the  course  of  human  events  it  ceases  to  respond 
to  anything  at  all. 

Its  motive  is  self-interest. 
Its  point  of  view  is  self. 
This  is  individualism. 
This  is  the  philosophy  of  Ishmael. 
This  is  the  philosophy  of  life  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
world  to-day.     It  may  not  be  confined  to  the  An-do- 
Saxon  world,  but  the  world's  business  is  being  carried'on 
and  the  world's  life  is  being  lived  under  a  philosophy 
of  hfe  which  has  no  adequate  ethical  foundation,  and 
IS  devoid  of  the  very  possibility  of  an  ethical  foundation. 

Pe.I.aps  I  may  be  permitted  to  register  a  personal  con- 
viction that  the  present  world  activity,  world  aim.  and 
outlook  will  never  be  profoundlv  modified  except  by  a 
world  religious  movement.    Should  ever  we  find  an  abso- 
utely  true  ethical  philosophy  it  can  appeal  only  to  a  few 
It  will  be  adequate  to  such  philosophers  as  may  both 
comprehend,  believe,  and  follow  it.    It  will  sustain  those 
who  already  constitute  the  elect,  but  for  the  strugc^lin^ 
and    stricken    hordes    of    humanity,    their    souls    can 
never  be  welded  into  a  fundamental  and  sustaining  prin- 
ciple except  in  the  white  heat  of  passion.     Ethical  sys- 
tems will  continue  to  throw  light  upon  the  pathways 
of  men,   but   men  are  so  constituted   they  must  haye 
heat  as  well  as  light,  and  action  must  follow  direction 
and  behind  knowledge  there  must  be  the  active  will 
It  has  been  growing  upon  me  the  more  I  read  of 


ETHICS  AND  INDIVIDUALISM  43 

human  history,  and  the  more  I  see  of  my  fellow  men. 
that  what  this  world  needs  more  than  all  else  just  now,' 
•s  not  so  mu-h  more  knowledge  as  living  up  to  the  best 
we  know. 

It  needs  Kant's  only  unconditional  good—good  will. 


CIIAPTKR  III 

THE  SEPARATION-  OF  ETHICS  FROM  ECONOMICS 

Tl,e  divorce  of  ethics  from  modern  economic  theory 
has  resuhed  in  the  separation  o.  n.orals  from  modern 
bus.nes.  hfe.     This  separation  is  due  more  to  Adam 
fem.th  tiian  to  any  other  man  wI,o  ever  lived,  excepting 
perhaps  the  man  wiio  di<l  r^iost  to  separate  ethics  frot^ 
poht.cs  before  him.  Machiavelli.     Smith  has  been  fol- 
lowed blindly  for  fonr  generations,  and  the  system  h« 
founded    still    exercises   a    fearful    influence    upon    the 
Anglo-Saxon   mind.      His   chief  contributions   are   his 
meti^od  and  point  of  view,  which  have  been  peculiarly 
agreeable  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind.    Adam  Smith  sepa- 
rated from  economics  whatever  foundations  in  ethics  it 
ever  had.     Th,s  was  done  by  the  isolation  of  the  study 
of  tl,e  subject  of  wealt!,  from  human  values.     While 
Goethe,  m  Germany,  was  clamoring  for  that  exalted  point 
of  view  which  could  see  life,  and  "see  it  whole"  the 
reaction  started  by  the  "Wealth  of  Nations"    vas  not 
merely  analytic,  as  in  the  body  of  it  is  developed  the 
theot-y  of  the  division  of  labor,  but  it  was  also  destruc- 
t.ve  m  the  isolation  of  the  study  of  wealth  from  human 
values.     "He  simply  discussed  the  question  of  wealth  " 
says  Professor  Cunningham.     "Its  bearing  on  the  con- 
dition  of  the  state  was  an  afterthought."     So.  I  fancy 
was  Its  bearing  on  the  condition  of  humanity 

The    keynote   of   the   mercantile    system    which    the 
Smithian    scheme   superseded   was    national    efficiency 


44 


ETHICS  AND  ECOXOMICS  45 

National  wealth  was  considered  as  a  means  to  national 
power.     Smith  said,  in  substance,  so  far  as  this  inquiry 
is  concerned,  wealth  is  the  end  of  human  endeavor.    The 
pathetic  thing  about  it  all  is.  that  four  generations  of 
disciples,  which  have  included  .several  hundreds  of  mil- 
lions  of  human  beings,  have  lived  by  the  proposition 
that  wealtli  is  the  end  of  human  endeavor.     This  very 
isolation  of  wealth  from  every  deeper  human  interest, 
so    universally    commended    by    economists,    has    had 
the  most  imfortunate.  even  tragical,  results.     They  tell 
us  that  it  introduced  an  immense  simplification:  that  It 
dealt  witli  ccononu'c  phenotnena  as  with  i)hvsical  objects 
and  natural  laws;  that  while,  to  his  English  predecessors, 
economics  had  been  a  department  of  politics  and  morals,' 
his  English  successors  recognized  that  in  Smith's  hands  it 
"became  analogous  to  physics."  and  tliat  they  "delighted 
to  treat  it  by  the  methods  of  mechanical  science."  and 
that  this  "has  brought  about  tlie  development  of  modern 
economic  theory." 

The  economists  tell  us  that  this  mechanical  treatment 
of  a  human  subject  "introduced  an  immense  simplifica- 
tion." So  it  did.  It  did  so  by  stripping  from  it  every 
relationship  it  sustained  to  the  spiritual  world.  It  did 
so  by  reducing  it  to  a  slieer  sodden  materialism. 
"Immense  simplification."  indeed!  So  was  that  later 
physiolog>-  which  isolated  the  human  bodv,  separated  it 
from  soul,  stated  human  life  in  terms  of  chemistry  and 
spirit  in  terms  of  physics,  e.  g.,  a  mode  of  motion. 

The  divorce  of  ethics  from  economics  has  resulted 
in  what  Carlyle  characterized  as  the  "dismal  science  " 
Hence  the  Englishman  under  the  system  of  economic 


46 


TFIF.  XF.W  POLITICS 


ni.l.vuiualisni  which  flowcrcl  „„t  of  the  fJIasRow  School 
"ito   the    Manchester    School   became   si.ch   a    creature 
that  to  awaken  his  real  beliefs  Carlvlc  sai.I  of  him:  "Vou 
must    descend    to    his    stomach,    purse,    and    adjacent 
regions.        'Ihis   "dismal   science"   was    founde.l    on   an 
attempt  to  create  a  certain  phase  ..f  human  economics 
without   reference  to  the  Inmian.  having  foisted  in  its 
place  a  certain  "covetous  machine"  which  for  want  of  a 
l>etter   name-or   worse-was   calle<l   "econon,ic   man  " 
I  Ills  monstrous  theory  would  have  been  baleful  enough 
exudmg  classic  poison   in  academic  shades.     Unfortu- 
nately,  it   escape,l  these  confmes  and   spread  over  the 
busmess  world  like  running  fire.     Had  not  Smith  dis- 
covered a  new  law  in  licen.se  and  that  everv  stream  of 
unrestricted  selfish  instinct  trickled  finally  into  the  millen- 
nial   river  of  the  common  good?     The   result   of  the 
Smithian  scheme  has  been  perhaps  the  nearest  approach 
to  pure  and  absolute  anarchy  ever  seen  in  the  world  in 
any  commanding  position  for  so  great  a  length  of  time- 
that  anarchy  found  in  the  political,  industrial,  and  com- 
mercial  history   of  the   Anglo-Saxon   peoples   in   their 
century-long  orgie  of  hisscc  fairc  sometimes  known  as 
the  gospel  of  Manchester. 

Leroux.  the  French  Socialist,  said.  "Man  is  an  animal 
transformed  by  reason  and  united  to  Iiumanity." 

The  Anglo-Saxon  individualists  taught  that  man  or 
economic  man.  in  whose  image  they  tried  to  recreate 
markmd.  was  a  brute  transformed  by  an  unrestrained 
and  acquisitive  greed  and  detached  from  humanity 
Thus  economics  disguised  and  parading  in  the  mas- 
querade  of  unctuous  phrases  and  of  words  humbugged 


ETHICS  AM)  r-COXOMICS  47 

and  bereft  of  all  ..riginal  and  lawful  content,  entered 
the  lists  as  welcome  cliampion  of  the  Scarlet  Udy  of 
fiiiancial  privilege  and  it  has  remained  faithful  to  its 
illicit  amour  to  this  day. 

Sta.iin^r  with  the  anarchy  of  individualism,  a  selfish 
and  wholly  irresponsible  instinct  to  be  not  only  gratified 
but  glutte.!.  this  sch(...l  turned  its  back  upon  ihe  future 
and  Its  face  toward  that  barbarism,  "nature  red  in  tooth 
an.l  claw,"  ami  hit  the  trail  of  the  ichthiosaur  ami  ptero- 
dactyl.    "Assuming."  as  Ruskin  has  said,  "not  that  the 
human  being  has  no  skeleton,  but  that  it  is  all  skeleton 
It  founds  an  ossifant  theory  of  progress  on  this  negation 
of  soul,  and  having  shown  tlie  utmost  that  can  be  made 
of   bones,    and    constructing  a    number    of   interesting 
geometrical  figures  with  death's  heads  and  humeri,  suc- 
cessfully proves  the  inconvenience  of  the  reappearance 
of  a  soul  among  these  corpuscular  .structures." 

The  foundation  of  tiie  Glasgow  and  the  Manchester 
schools  of  economics  was  the  same  as  that  of  the  juris- 
prudence of  Bentham.  and  the  politics  of  Rousseau,  and 
of  his  perhaps  two  most  distinguished  disciples.  Thomas 
Jefferson   and    Maximillian    Robespierre.      That    foun- 
<iation  was  individualism.     The  fundamental   error  of 
the  economists  was  in  their  conception  of  values-  in 
making  wealth  the  sole  end  of  man  instead  of  man  the 
sole  end   of  wealth.      The   result   was   not  a   political 
economy.  l)ut  an  economy  of  commercialism,  which  was 
a  pure  money-getting  materialism  on  Machiavellian  foun- 
dations.   Considering  everything  from  the  standpoint  of 
egoism  they  set  up  a  crass  and  brutal  end  to  be  gained 
and  subordinated  humanity-that  is  to  say,  also,  ethics 


48 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


and  religion— to  the  role  of  means  to  the  attainment  of 
the  end.  Smithian  economics  is  Machiavellianism  on  the 
bargain  counter.  This  is  why  economics  knows  no 
ethics,  and  is  as  wholly  divorced  from  a  philosophy  of 
right  and  wrong  as  is  a  table  of  logarithms— why  this 
"enlightened  self-interest"  (a  phrase  which  apologizes 
for  itself)— Smithianisnnis,  as  the  Germans  call  it- 
is  in  business  what  Machiavellianism  is  in  politics. 

The  i)leasing  fiction  of  ec(^numic  man.  acting  under 
economic  law,  was  about  as  true  to  life  as  was  Rous- 
seau's man  in  a  state  of  nature,  where,  indeed,  economic 
man  might  have  been  evolved.  It  is  a  highly  suggestive 
fact  that  when  Darwin  looked  about  him  for  a  i)hrase 
to  fit  the  struggle  of  the  beast  for  existence  he  found 
wliat  lie  was  looking  for  in  the  "ethics"  of  the  Man- 
chester school,  namely,  the  survival  of  the  strong  and 
cunning  (although  he  named  it.  inaccurately  and  un- 
fortunately, the  "survival  of  the  fittest"). 

This  is  a  plain  statement  of  the  economic  law  nf  unre- 
strained competition  where  the  big  eat  the  little,  and 
Darwin  frankly  admitted  that  Malthus  on  "Population- 
suggested  the  "Origin  of  the  Species." 

The  academic  separation  of  etlu'cs  and  politics  had 
preceded  the  separation  of  ethics  and  economics.  Prac- 
tical statesmen,  indulging  their  own  self-love,  backed 
and  promoted  by  powerful  interests  which  knew  no 
motive  but  l!.-it  of  the  primeval  selfish  instinct,  found  it 
only  too  easy  to  take  the  academician  at  his  word. 
Machiavellian  Politics  is  concerned  only  with  success. 
Smithian  Economics  is  concernerl  only  with  wealth. 
Neither  has  the  slightest  leaning  toward  a  fundamental 


ETHICS  AND  ECONOMICS  49 

appreciation  of  values  and  neither  has  an  adequate  con- 
ception of  humanity.  In  both,  ethical  and  spiritual  con- 
siderations must  be  considered  only  as  means  toward 
material  ends. 

"The  intrusion  of  ethics  into  economics,"  says  Profes- 
sor Keynes,  "cannot  but  multiply  and  perpetuate  sources 
of  disagreement."     (Hobson.)     The  same  may  be  said 
of  the  intrusion  of  ethics  into  Politics  and  government, 
or  indeed  the  intrusion  of  religion  into  life.    The  "sources 
of  disagreement"  in  the  great  questions  of  human  wel- 
fare  appear   as    rapidly    as    the   ethical   consideration 
"intrudes."     But  why  "intrudes"?     The  language  is  an 
impudent  intimation  that  ethics  is  some  sporadic  and 
non-essential,  non-human  quality.     As  a  matter  of  fact, 
all  human  relations  involve,  fundamentally,  such  ethical 
considerations,  in  tiiat  they  are  unimaginable  apart  from 
these  ethical   foundations.     They  involve  not  only  the 
economic  problems  of  waste  and  utility,  but  the  ethical 
question  of  human  rights  and  human  uses  and  abuses. 
Ethics   cannot   "intrude"   where   these   problems   exist. 
The  verv-  problems  themselves  are  ethical,  and  if  they 
nniltiply  and  perpetuate  sources  of  disagreement,  those 
sources  may  be  found  where  the  claims  of  privilege  assert 
themselves  and  those  of  justice  determine. 

One  of  the  most  curious  and.  indeed,  the  most  unin- 
telligent corollaries  of  the  Manchester  svstem,  is  the 
development  and  use  of  the  word  law.  It  lias  resulted 
in  one  of  the  most  pitiful  of  the  confusions  of  modern 
times.  It  may  be  partly  owing  to  the  poverty  of  our 
language  that  the  word  law  has  been  used  for' the  pur- 
pose of  misleading  the  popular  mind.     When  the  suc- 


1 


50 


THE  XKW  POLITICS 


cessors  of  Smith  began  to  treat  economic  phenomena  on 
the  basis  of  a  pliysical  or  mechanical  science,  they 
deduced  certain  "law."  Tiie  people  were  used  to  con- 
sidering a  law  as  a  rule  of  conduct.  It  was  something 
vviiich  must  be  obeyed.  The  lea.lers  of  thought  did  not 
make  the  proper  distinctions  between  a  law  of  science, 
which  is  noiiiing  more  or  less  than  a  statement  of  how 
certain  things  behave,  and  a  law  which  is  evolved  in  the 
social  structure,  containing  a  spiritual  element,  which 
the  purely  physical  realm  does  not.  In  science  a  law 
has  no  ethical  bearing.  In  the  relations  of  mankind  a 
law  is  inconceivable,  as  not  involving  an  element  of  obli- 
gation, a  principle  of  right  and  wrong. 

It  may  be  said  with  justice  tiiat  the  Manchester  school 
knew  practically  no  law.  as,  outside  the  realm  of  physi- 
cal science,  we  are  used  to  interpreting  the  word  law, 
for  it  was  destitute  of  ethics.     The  very  basis  of  all 
human  law,  political  or  economic,  the  more  so  moral 
law.  is  obligation.    Tiie  only  obligation  recognized  in  the 
whole  life  philosophy  of  individualism  was  that  to  get 
pleasure,  the  most  of  which  was  to  get  riches.    Prudence 
took  the  place  of  duty.     Honesty  was  no  more  than  the 
best  policy.     If  it  ever  could  be  shown,  or  if  it  ever 
appeared,  that  in  order  to  get  rich  there  was  a  more 
effective  policy— so  much  the  worse  for  honesty.     So 
with  all  tlie  other  prudences  which  the  oKl-fashioned  had 
known  as  virtues.     The  wliole  system  was  a  soulless 
scheme  of  exploitation    built   on   the  denial   of  spirit, 
leaped  upon  by  the  ignobiest  elements  in  mankind  and 
perpetuated  in  justification  of  tlieir  ignobility.     When 
the  Manchester  school  began  to  talk  about  economic  law 


ETHICS  AND  ECONOMICS  51 

it  began  to  aixjlcgize  for  itself  and  made  an  exhibition 
at  once  ignorant  and  ludicrous. 

The  economic  man  behaves  so  and  so.  A  statement 
of  his  behavior  is  economic  law.  It  is  natural  for  iiim  to 
follow  his  selfish  instinct.  l<:ach  man  following  his  self- 
ish instinct  works  for  the  good  of  the  whole,  therefore 
each  man  ought  to  follow  his  selfish  instinct— "quod  erat 
demonstrandum." 

This  is  the  economic  law.  Law  must  be  obeyed. 
People  must  behave  in  business  as  "economic  men,"  not 
as  human  beings  and  Christians,  for  getting  wealth  is 
the  chief  end,  and  this  gets  wealth.  The  weak  must  perish. 
The  strong  and  cunning  must  survive.  Because  they 
survive  they  are  fittest— not  fittest  to  their  environment, 
but  fittest  to  survive.  Economic  law  is,  "Whatever  is,  is 
right."  Because  it  is  so  it  ought  to  be  so.  People  are 
selfish,  therefore  they  ought  to  be  selfish. 

Here  was  a  "law"  men  were  only  too  willing  to  obey. 
It  took  no  uncommon  casuistry  to  circumvent  the  little 
difficulties  a  shrinking  conscience  might  heap  in  its  way. 
The  Manchester  moralist  did  not  even  teach  that  Might 
IS  Right  because  it  did  not  recognize  the  need  of  ri-ht 
It  substituted  for  /  ought  I  want.  This  new  categorkal 
imperative  has  dominated  the  business  world  for  over  a 
hundred  years. 

This  benign  and  most  Christian  philosophy  is  .stated 
by  the  Rev.  Malthus  in  all  its  nakedness  in  the  appendix 
to  his  essay  on  Population. 

"The  great  Author  of  Nature,  by  making  the  passion 
of  self-love  beyond  comparison  stronger  than  the  passion 
of  benevolence,  has  at  once  impelled  us  to  that  line  of 


52 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


conduct  which  is  essential  to  the  preservation  of  the 
human  race.  He  has  enjoined  every  man  to  pursue,  as 
his  primary  object,  his  own  safety  and  happiness  (includ- 
ing his  family).  By  this  wise  provision  the  most  ignorant 
are  led  to  promote  the  general  happiness,  an  end  which 
they  would  have  totally  failed  to  attain  if  the  moving 
principle  had  been  benevolence." 

A  modern  philosopher,  who  has  been  wrongly  classed 
with  the  individualists,  opposes  to  the  saying  of  the  rev- 
erend gentleman  above  quoted,  "So  mach  benevolence 
as  a  man  hath  so  much  life  has  he."  It  was  the  German 
philosopher  who  found  benevolence  the  deepest  of  all 
things  in  time  or  space,  for  it  was  Emmanuel  Kant  who 
said  that  good  will  is  the  only  unconditioned  good  in  the 
imiverse. 

Adam  Smith  argued  that  if  trade  were  left  alone  it 
would  discover  how  it  could  go  best  and  that  to  follow 
self-inteiest  would  promote  tlie  best  interests  of  society. 
Mr.  Leslie  Stephen  naively  remarks,  "Adam  Smith's 
position  is  intelligible.  It  was,"  he  thought,  "a  proof 
of  providential  order  that  each  man  by  helping  himself 
first  unintentionally  helped  his  neighbor."  It  is  fairly 
probable  that  a  consistent  individualist  will  help  himself 
first,  and,  if  lie  helps  his  neighbor,  it  will  be  unintentional. 

When  Bentiiam  writes  on  economic  legislation 
(Manual  of  Political  Economy,  1789),  after  stating  his 
theory  that  security  and  freedom  are  all  that  industry 
requires,  he  concludes  tliat  all  economic  legislation  is 
improper.  Out  of  this  theor\\  which  Arnold  Toynbee 
sums  up  as  "Man's  self-love  is  God's  providence," 
grew  the  orthodox  political  economy  and  the  utilitarian 


ETHICS  AND  ECONOMICS  53 

jurisprudence,  and  the  whole  system  of  what  is  known 
as  "Cobden's  Calico  Millennium,"  and  which  might  be 
not  inappropriately  styled  a  dough  philosophy,  since  the 
two  articles  of  his  creed  were  "get  gain"  and  the  "cheap 
loaf  is  the  chief  end  of  man." 

Carlyle,  in  one  of  his  gentlest  moods,  thus  character- 
izes the  prevailing  "ethics"  of  individualism:  "Moral 
evil  is  unattainability  of  Pigs  wash;  moral  good  attain- 
able good  of  ditto.  It  is  the  mission  of  universal  Pig- 
hood,  and  the  duty  of  all  Pigs,  to  diminish  the  quantity 
of  unattainable  and  increase  the  attainable.  All  knowl- 
edge, and  device,  and  eflfort  ought  to  be  directed  thither 
and  thither  only;  Pig  Science.  Pig  Enthusiasm,  and 
Devotion  have  this  one  aim.  It  is  the  whole  duty  of 
Pigs.  Quarreling  is  attended  with  frightful  effusion  of 
the  general  stock  of  Hogs  wash  and  ruin  to  large  sec- 
tions of  universal  Swine's  trough;  Wherefore  let  quar- 
reling be  avoided." 

The  conception  has  been  slowly  growing  upon  the  world 
that  there  are  other  laws  to  be  considered  than  those 
rules  under  which  a  few  economic  Calibans  and  financial 
Frankensteins  may  get  rich;  laws  which  involve  the 
elements  of  obligation  and  spirit  framed  with  reference 
to  a  world's  welfare  which  is  the  result  of  something 
other  than  a  jungle  of  selfish  instincts. 


CHAPTKR  IV 

THK    SEPARATION    OF    ETHICS    FROM    POLITICS 

"Machiavelli,"  says  Bonar  (Pliilosophy  and  Political 
Economy,  p.  (x»,  "has  been  said,  by  Knies.  to  have 
'thrown  ethics  out  of  politics  as  Spinoza  threw  Ethics 
out  of  Ethics.'  ••  It  could  have  been  said  more  com- 
prehensively that  those  thinkers  have  thrown  ethics  out 
of  politics  and  economics  and  even  out  of  ethics,  who  have 
founded  ethics  on  a  philosophy  of  life  which  justifies 
human  selfislmess. 

The  justification  of  the  selfish  instinct  is  the  denial 
of  good  will  and  the  elimination  of  good  will  removes 
the  bottom  from  an  ethical  and  rational  society. 

"When  one  thinks  of  how  Ii:mi)ires  and  States  have 
been  tossed  about  from  hand  to  hand  by  the  chances  of 
war  anrl  brute  force,  of  .Might  in  a  word:  how  hordes 
of  marauders  have  from  the  morrow  of  some  success- 
ful campaign  continued   to  sit  dividing  the  spoils   of 
whole  countries  among  tliemselves  for  centuries,  while 
throwing  the   leavings   to  the   vanquished   as  to  their 
dogs;  or  how  in  industrial  ages  bands  of  speculators 
nsmg  on  the  backs  of  the  patient  multitude  and  bv  be- 
commg  multimillionaires"  fthe  multibillionaire  has 'been 
invented  within  a  few  montlis)  "raising  or  depressing  the 
markets  of  the  world  at  their  pleasure  with  the  stroke 
of  a  pen ;  when  one  thinks  of  this,  and  of  how  those  who 
feel  the  pinch    of   it    in   their   narrow   and    straitened 
household  lives  (regarding  it  as  they  might  a  famine  or 

54 


ETHICS  AND  POLITICS 


55 


any  other  visitation  of  God)  think  it  all  quite  natural— 
with  these  effronteries  of  Power  staring  us  in  the  face, 
one  feels  that  to  profess  to  take  seriously  all  the  organ- 
ized   machinery    of    courts    of    Law    and    Justice    by 
which  are  nicely  determined  the  exact  amount  of  right 
or  wrong,  of  praise  or  penalty,  involved  in  the  stealing 
of  pence  or  sixpences,  is  an  elaborate  hypocrisy.  .  .  . 
Emerson  said  that  you  might  as  well  sit  in  a  church  and 
listen  with  pious  hypocrisy  to  doctrines  which  you  no 
longer  believed,  for  if  you  went  outside  into  the  street 
things  were  just  as  bad."     Crozier  goes  on  to  state: 
(History  of  Intellectual  Development,  vol.  iii,  p.  232) 
that  riglit  will  come  to  its  fruition  "without  doubt  in 
some  millennial  time;  but  it  will  come  neither  with  moral 
preaching  nor  moral  discussions.    It  will  come  when  the 
Material  and  Social  Conditions,  which  have  permitted  or 
encouraged  a  section  of  the  Community  to  load  the  dice, 
while  the  rest  look  on  and  give  them  a  free  hand  by  re- 
garding it  as  right  and  natural— it  will  come  when  these 
material  and  social  conditions  are  altered,  and  not  till 
then.     By  which   I  mean  that  Moral  Philosophy  and 
Ethics  are  a  department  of  Politics,  have  their  roots  in 
Politics  and  cannot  on  pain  of  falsehood  and  error  be 
divorced  from  Politics;  as  Politics  itself  in  turn  has  its 
roots  in  civilization." 

I  will  go  further  than  this  and  say: 
There  is  no  hope  of  the  politics  of  this  world  until 
they  have  been  moralized  and  no  hope  of  morals  until 
they  have  been  spiritualized.  The  untamed  ferocity  of 
the  human  heart  is  the  bottom  fact  we  have  to  deal  with. 
The  wild   beast    in  mankind   will   never  be  tamed   or 


m 


m 


IL 


56 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


even  caged  until  the  life  philosophy  of  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  race  has  abandoned  individualism ;  until 
their  habits  and  institutions  have  eliminated  the  principle 
of  free  competition— strife— if  not  based  on  hatred,  the 
mother  of  hatred ;  and  until  to  a  large  degree  good  will 
has  become  a  motive  among  men. 

The  contribution   of  the  Christian   religion   is   that 
humanity  must  be  broken  up  into  individualities  which 
must  be  perfected,  so  to  speak,  before  the  world  can 
assume  any;  ling  like  a  proper  social  form.    These  units 
must  be  bom  again— i.  e.,  turned  inside  out— i.  e.,  must 
become  God-centered  instead  of  self-centered  beings,  as 
the  very  elemental  condition  of  that  "earnest  expec- 
tation of  creation  which  shall  reveal  sons  of  God."    A 
human  society  composed  of  individuals  reborn  and  per- 
fected  out  of  the  ancient  despotic  state  smashed  into 
its  individual  and  component  parts;  and  a  state  growing 
out  of  the  common  reason  and  common  conscience  and 
common  life;  and  this  state  rationally  conceived  and 
self-wrought  and  self-imposed ;  in  other  words,  an  ethical 
democracy  wherein  the  very  forms  of  association  embody 
an  immanent  reason  and  ethic,  is  the  state  made  possible 
by  the  Christian  revelation. 

So  far  the  process  is  but  half  complete.  The  individual 
hj:s  been  emancipated  but  not  reborn.  This,  of  course, 
is  not  to  say  but  that  there  are  a  few  Christians  in  the 
world.  The  tyranny  of  Rome  imposed  from  the  outside 
is  being  disintegrated  by  the  individualism  of  Protes- 
tantism, but  in  theology  as  in  Politics  we  have  not  yet 
exceeded  our  point  of  view,  which  is  individual  instinct, 
or  our  motive,  which  is  self-love.    There  is  nothing  alive 


ETHICS  AND  POLITICS  57 

to-day  in  Christendom  which  gives  promise  that  human- 
ity is  adequate  to  embody  the  Christian  faith  in  bona 
fides  and  organize  human  society  on  the  basis  of  reci- 
procity instead  of  that  to-day  universal  reign  of  hisses 
faire  self-love. 

In  politics  and  economics  the  problem  becomes  one 
as  to  whether  the  element  of  good  will  shall  find  less  or 
more  scope;  whether  the  area  of  the  common  good  shall 
be  enlarged  or  restricted;  whether,  in  fact,  the  highest 
development  of  the  human  race  lies  toward  the  motive 
of  good  will  and  the  ideal  of  a  united  and  friendly 
humanity,  or  in  the  motive  of  the  selfish  instinct  and  the 
ideal  of  atoms  at  war.  Here  lies  the  problem  of  politics 
and  the  fate  of  democracy,  in  which,  i.  e.,  in  the  true 
democracy,  not  the  false,  is  involved  the  future  of  human 
freedom. 

Thinkers  of  the  school  of  Plato  and  Hegel  hold  up 
the  realization  of  the  moral  law  as  the  end  of  the  state. 
Whatever  Plato  and  Hegel  may  have  taught,  no  actual 
state  has  so  far  set  out  to  realize  the  whole  moral  law. 
Legislation  laps  largely  over  the  moral  law,  but  there  are 
moral  functions  with  which  the  state  may  quite  properly 
have  nothing  to  do.  But,  then,  it  will  not  do  to  reason 
from  this  to  the  separation  of  ethics  and  politics  as  so 
many  have  done.  The  state  for  one  thing  must  real- 
ize within  its  own  institutions  the  moral  law;  i.  e., 
its  laws  and  Constitution  must  be  the  projection  of  a 
rational  and  ethical  idea.  This  is  very  different  from 
the  Platonic-Hegelian  conception  that  the  whole  moral 
code  must  be  enforced.  It  means  that  whatever  is  real- 
ized and  institutionalized  must  be  realized  ethically. 


58 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


But  the  testimony  is  overwhelming  in  the  life  and 
literature  of  modem  times  that  the  iwlitical  theories  of 
civilization  actually  have  been  separated  from  etliics; 
that  Politics  at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century 
is  in  a  state  as  pagan,  as  selfish  and  materialistic,  as 
individualistic — perhaps  almost  as  completely  as  if 
Aristotle  and  Jesus  had  never  lived. 


Between  the  days  of  Greece  in  her  glory  and  Italy 
of  the  Renaissance  tin  e  is  little  to  tlatter  the  egotism 
of  mankind.  The  Crusades  were  the  first  great  clial- 
lenge  to  individualism  during  tlie  medieval  age.  They 
crystallized  to  a  degree  the  ideas  of  a  new  era;  curtailed 
and  mitigated  the  fratricidal  cruelties  of  private  war; 
in  their  rough  way  reiuspired  Cliristendom  with  the 
spirit  of  solidarity  and  altruism;  strove  after  something 
higher  than  fratricidal  bloodshed  and  political  piracy  in 
reaching  out  with  an  unselfish  motive  not  to  conquer 
new  lands  but  to  recover  the  "patrimony  of  the  Cruci- 
fied." "They  were  the  first  great  effort  of  medieval  life 
to  go  beyond  the  pursuit  of  selfish  and  isolated  ambi- 
tions; they  were  the  trial  feat  of  the  new  world,  essaying 
to  use  to  the  Glory  of  God  and  the  benefit  of  man  the 
arms  of  its  new  Knighthood."  (Stubbs,  Lectures  on 
Medieval  and  Modern  Histor>'.  p.  157.)  Alas,  to  fail 
from  jealousies,  dissensions,  strifes— individualism— at 
last! 

One  is  not  surprised  at  the  political  ideals  of  the  Re- 
tiaissance.  when  he  knows  something  of  the  ferocity  of 
the  people  of  the  period.  But  one  of  the  tragic  things 
over  which  a  man  of  ethical  insight  loses  his  reputation 


ETHICS  AN'D  POLITICS 


59 


for  patience,  if  not  his  faith  in  mankind,  is  the  spectacle 
of  Machiavelhanism  triunipliant  in  the  twentieth  century. 
Says  Lord  Acton  of  Machiavelli  (Introduction  t(j  II 
Principe.  Essays  on  Liberty,  p.  231 ) :  "He  is  the  earliest 
conscious  and  articulate  exponent  of  certain  living  forces 
in  the  present  world.  Religion,  progressive  enlighten- 
ment, the  perpetual  vigilance  of  public  opinion  have  not 
reduced  his  empire.  ...  He  obtains  a  new  lease  of  life 
from  causes  that  are  still  prevailing  and  from  doctrines 
that  are  still  apparent  in  politics,  philosophy,  and  science. 
.  .  .  We  find  him  near  our  common  level  ...  a  con- 
stant and  contemporary  influence  .  .  .  rationally  intel- 
ligible when  illustrated  by  lights  falling,  not  only  from 
the  century  he  wrote  in  but  from  our  own.  which  has 
seen  the  course  of  its  history  twenty-five  times  diverted 
by  actual  or  attempted  crime." 

This  age.  with  its  life  and  thought— especially  its 
economic  and  political  theories— is  thrice  accursed  in  that 
like  the  criminal  of  old  it  is  condemned  to  carry  a  corps* 
chained  to  its  back — the  corpse  of  Machiavelli. 

Machiavelli  was  first  among  the  modern  advocates 
(not  first  in  time  but  first  in  his  i.align  ixiwer)— first  to 
state  clearly  the  political  theory  tvhicli  justifies  a  man's 
selfishness  to  himself.  This  is  what  Christendom,  and 
science,  and  philosophy  have  not  yet  refuted  but  adopted 
— what  the  "Christian"  world  stands  for;  whose  doctrine 
modern  life  apologizes  for — this  historian  of  "not  the 
desperate  resources  of  politicians  at  bay,  but  the  avowed 
practice  of  decorous  and  religious  magistrates."— 
(Lord  Acton.) 
Who  has  not  read  The  Prince?     Who  has  tried  to 


f 


>* 


60 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


take  any  responsible  part  in  the  worlds  life,  or  has  read 
any  considerable  record  of  it  in  the  histories  of  men 
dead  and  gone,  or  in  the  last  morning  paper,  who  has 
not  run  up  against  the  openly  avowed  principles  of  The 
Prince?  To  be  sure  we  have  not  many  of  us  been  sti- 
lettoed  or  poisoned,  unless  a  few  by  the  distinguished 
countrymen  of  our  philosopher  whoiTi  we  have,  in  our 
loving  kindness,  made  our  honored  guests  at  Ellis  Island, 
and  given  the  Black  Hand  the  glad  hand !  Felicitations 
to  our  superlative  complacency  I 

One  finds  room  to  mention  but  one  example,  and  that 
briefly.  Let  us  say  of  Caesar  Borgia,  "vulgarly  spoken 
of  as  Duke  Valentino,"  who  laid  broad  the  foundations 
"whereon  to  rest  his  future  power." 

Let  us  see  just  what  this  man  Machiavelli  means — 
this  man  who,  more  nearly  than  Jesus,  rules  the  world 
to-day.  Speaking  of  the  Duke,  the  historian  philoso- 
phizes :  "And  since  this  part  of  his  conduct  merits  both 
attention  and  imitation  I  shall  not  pass  over  it  in  silence." 
The  subjugation  of  Romagna  to  the  Holy  See  was 
accomplished  on  paving  stones  of  assassination.  The 
Duke  set  over  it,  in  order  to  establish  'good  government,' 
Messer  Romeiro  d'Orco,  who,  with  'much  credit  to  him- 
self,' restored  it  to  tranquillity  and  order.  .  .  .  Knowing 
that  past  severities  had  generated  ill-feeling  against  him- 
self .  .  .  and  availing  himself  of  the  pretext  which  this 
afforded,  he  one  morning  caused  Romeiro  (who  had  but 
served  him  faithfully)  to  be  beheaded  and  exposed  in  the 
market  place  of  Cesera  with  a  black  and  bloody  ax  by 
his  side.  The  barbarity  of  which  spectacle  at  once 
astounded  and  satisfied  the  populace." 


ETHICS  AND  POLITICS 


6i 


This  is  one  of  the  incidents  to  merit  "both  attention 
and  imitation."  After  relating  much  more  and  perhaps 
worse  of  this  man,  the  philosopher  and  founder  of 
modern  political  ethics  says  without  a  shiver:  "Taking 
all  tliese  actions  of  the  Duke  together,  I  can  find  no  fault 
with  him." 

Taine,  in  his  Lectures  on  the  Philosophy  of  Art  (p. 
97  ct  seq. ),  brings  out  very  clearly  the  fact  that  political 
ethics — indeed,  morality  in  general — is  not  at  all  depend- 
ent upon  culture  and  art.  He  cites  the  case  of  Caesar 
Borgia  and  says:  "You  have  but  just  seen  the  repeated 
proofs  of  this  high  culture;  while  manners  have  become 
elegant  and  tastes  delicate,  the  hearts  and  characters  of 
men  have  remained  ferocious.  These  people,  who  are 
learned,  critical,  fine  talkers,  polished,  and  men  of  society, 
are,  at  the  same  time,  freebooters,  assassins,  and  murder- 
ers. Their  actions  are  those  of  intelligent  wolves.  Sup- 
pose, now,  that  a  W(jlf  sliould  form  judgments  of  Iiis 
species;  he  would  probably  found  his  cude  on  murder. 
This  is  what  happened  in  Italy ;  the  pliilosopliers  erected 
the  customs  of  wliich  they  were  witnesses  into  a  theory, 
and  ended  by  believing  or  saying  that  if  you  wish  to  sub- 
sist or  exist  in  tliis  world  you  must  act  like  a  scoundrel. 
Tiie  most  profound  of  these  theorists  was  Machiavelli, 
a  great  man,  and  indeed  an  honest  man,  a  patriot,  a 
superior  genius,  who  wrote  a  work  called  The  Prince 
to  justify,  or  at  least  to  sanction,  treachery  and  assassi- 
nation." 

"Everybody  knows  how  laudable  it  is  for  a  Prince  to 
keep  his  word,"  says  Machiavelli.  Let  us  not  be  deceived. 
We  are  not  reading  the  Institutes  of  Calvin,  or  a  modern 


iiu 


62 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


Sunday   School    Quarterly.      Machiavelli,    preacher   of 
righteousness,   appears  now  and  then  in  the  praise  of 
virtue:  It  is  better  to  tell  the  truth  than  to  lie— when- 
ever it  pays  as  well.    Better  let  a  man  live  than  to  poison 
him— if  it  equally  suits  your  purposes.     Assassination 
should  not  be  consitiered  a  pastime.     "Everybody  knows 
how  laudable  it  is  for  a  prince  to  keep  his  word 
but  those  princes  have  accomplished  great  things  who 
have  made  little  account  of  their  faith  and  have  known 
how,  through  craftiness,  to  turn  men's  brains  and  have 
at   last  destroyed  those  who  built   upon  their  loyalty. 
...  A  wise  seignior  cannot  or  ought  not  to  keep  his 
word  when  that  is  injurious  to  him.  ...  It  is  necessary 
...  to   be  a  competent   cheat    and   dissimulator.  . 
And  men  are  so  simple  .  .  .  that  he  who  deceives  always 
finds  some  one  who  lets  himself  be  deceived." 

Lord  Acton   (Essays  on  Liberty,  Introduction  to  II 
Principe,   p.    214),    himself    a    Catholic,    declares   that 
Machiavelli  was  popular  at  Rome,  and  that  the  Medicean 
popes  "encouraged  him  to  write,  and  were  not  oflFended 
at  the  things  he  wrote  for  tliem.     Leo's  own  dealings 
with  the  tyrants  of  Perugia  were  cited  by  the  jurists  as 
a  suggestive  model  for  men  who  have  an  enemy  to  get 
rid  of.     Clement  confessed  to  Contarini  that  honesty 
would  be  preferable,  but  that  honest  men  get  the  worst 
of  it."     How  long  after  this  was  it  that  Walpole  wrote: 
"Xo  great  country  was  ever  saved  by  good  men.  because 
good  men  will  not  go  to  the  lengths  that  may  be  neces- 
sary."    Romulus  is  justified  in  slaying  Remus  on  the 
proposition  that   "a  good   result  excuses  any  violence" 
(Discourses  on  Livy). 


ETHICS  AND  POLITICS 


63 


One  almost  fears,  in  studying  the  Machiavellian 
remains  in  human  society  to-day,  that  there  is  truth  in 
the  words  of  Guicciardini,  his  contemporary :  "That  past 
things  shed  light  on  future  things,  for  the  world  was 
always  of  the  same  sort,  and  all  that  which  is  and  will 
be  has  been  in  former  times;  and  the  same  things  return 
under  different  names." 

But  Machiavellianism  is  the  same  thing  and  can  be 
called  by  the  same  name.  There  is  an  unholy  vitality  in 
Machiavelli's  doctrines.  Everywhere,  from  Machiavelli 
until  this  minute,  we  find  the  vicious  Jesuit  maxim : 
"Cui  licet  finis,  illi  ct  media  permissa  stmt." 

In  politics,  in  business,  in  society,  we  are  referred 
to  the  results  rather  than  the  motives — and  the  results 
of  this  doctrine  h-'/e  led  to  the  interpretation  of  resuhs 
in  materialistic  tt  iS.  "The  end  justifies  the  means." 
Who  has  not  met  it,  if,  out  of  his  teens,  he  has  ever 
tried  to  do  business.  Good  faith  in  business  is  almost  a 
negligible  quantity  on  the  North  American  Continent — 
perhaps  in  a  much  wider  field.  Do  our  politicians  keep 
faith  ?    Who  will  say  so  who  has  dealt  closely  with  them  ? 

"It  is  easier  to  expose  errors  in  practical  politics  than 
to  remove  the  ethical  basis  of  judgments  zvhich  the 
modern  7vorld  employs  in  common  with  Machiavelli" 
(Lord  Acton,  Introduction  to  II  Principe,  Essays  on 
Liberty,   p.   219). 

It  is  not  within  our  province  here  to  discuss  the  naive 
brutality  of  Machiavelli's  teachings  as  relating  to  matters 
of  international  ethics.  But  it  is  pertinent  to  ask  if  the 
foundations  of  Machiavellianism  are  the  foundations  of 
the  modern  "ethical"  state. 


4[ 


'In 


64 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


Is  this  world,  as  Machiavelli  saw  it,  without  principle 
or  conscience?  Is  man,  as  Machiavelli  saw  and  under- 
stood him,  without  conscience  or  principle?  Professor 
Villari,  Machiavelli's  biographer,  says  we  must  leap  from 
the  "Politics"  of  Aristotle  to  iMachiavelli  "to  gain  a.» 
other  step  in  advance"  (vol.  ii,  p.  94). 

"The  problem  proposed  by  Aristotle  in  his  Politics 
was  mainly  an  inquiry  into  the  best  form  of  Govern- 
ment. ..."  <'But  Machiavelli  had  another  object  in 
view,  and  tlius  the  governments  imagined  by  philoso- 
phers was  not  of  the  slightest  importance  to  him.  Aris- 
totle cliiefly  sought  to  establish  that  which  men  and 
governments  should  be ;  Machiavelli  declared  such  inquiry 
to  be  useless,  and  rather  tried  to  determine  that  wliich 
they  are,  and  that  which  they  might  actually  be,"  whose 
foundation  is  the  stiletto  and  whose  bulwark  is  poison. 

Machiavellianism  is  not  the  justification  of  an 
occasional  murder.  It  is  the  propaganda  of  a  philosophy 
of  cnme.  It  is  not  non  moral,  as  so  many  have  called  it. 
It  is  not  even  immoral  only.  It  is  criminal.  And  the 
modern  worid  upholds  it  and  the  philosophy  of  life 
underneath  it,  the  justification  of  a  man's  selfishness  to 
himself;  the  theory  that  miglit  is  right,  that  success 
justifies  itself— the  Real  Politik  of  Schiller,  Die  Welt- 
Gcschkhte  ist  das  U'elt-Gericht. 


HI 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  RISE  OF  THE  DEMOCRACY  OF  INDIVIDUALISM 

It  is  more  than  a  coincidence  for  the  curious  that  the 
year  1776  saw  the  pubUcation,  with  Gibbon's  Rome  and 
Tom  Paine's  Common  Sense,  of  Adam  Smith's  Weahh  of 
Nations,  Jeremy  Bentham's  Fragment  of  Government, 
and  Thomas  Jeflferson's  Declaration  of  Independence.  It 
is  as  if  three  stars  of  the  first  magnitude  had  risen  over  the 
horizon,  each  promising  to  be  a  new  world  by  itself,  in 
Economics,  Jurisprudence,  Politics ;  and  these  three  men 
stand  for  these  three  realms— first  and  foremost  spokes- 
men of  the  New  Thought  and  philosophy  of  individualism 
out  of  which  grew  the  age  of  revolution  and  revolt. 

The  world  movement  of  which  these  incidents  were 
indications  was  the  resilient  reaction  of  the  human  mind 
from  at^e-long  oppression  toward  personal  liberty.  We 
can  hardly  wonder  that  the  swing  of  the  pendulum 
carried  to  the  other  extreme.  It  cannot  be  said  that  in 
the  past  human  government  was  all  that  could  have  been 
expected  of  it.  It  not  only  had  been  tyrannical  and  oppres- 
sive, but  for  thousands  of  years  tyranny  and  oppression 
had  been  the  principal  subject  of  those  who  essayed  to 
write  history.  Perhaps  the  future  reader  of  history  will 
say  that  the  most  wonderful  thing  revealed  in  it  is  the  im- 
measurable patience  of  mankind — that  so  many  kings 
have  died  in  their  beds. 

"Before  the  revolution,"  says  Louis  Blanc,  "the  domi- 
nant fact  was  the  oppression  of  the  individual.     Until 

6s 


66 


TH1-:  Xi:W  POLITICS 


then  tlie  movements  of  governments  had  been  known 
only  by  their  tyrannies  and  rapines.  Men  aspired  only 
to  break  tlie  molds  of  despotism  in  the  fonii  in  which 
they  were"  (French  Revolution,  vol.  i,  p.  259). 

The  dominant  note  of  aspiration  before  ami  during 
the  revolution  therefore  was  relief.  Liberty  was  both 
catchword  and  watchword,  and  in  those  days  hisses 
faire  was  big  with  meaning. 

No  wonder  the  people  listened  to  Jean-Jacques  when  he 
wrote:  "To  find  a  form  of  association  which  defends 
and  protects  the  person  and  property  of  each  associate 
with  all  the  common  force" ;  and  followed  him  as  they 
would  a  new  Messiah. 

The  eighteenth  c^inury  seems  to  have  been  one  of 
those  few  disintegrating  periods  of  the  human  mind 
which  have  been  only  too  few  in  the  history  of  our  race. 
So  wide  an  indignation,  followed  by  so  universal  a 
revolt,  must  have  had  some  puissant  cause.  It  is  not  so 
easy  as  may  be  imagined  to  trace  the  sources  and  causes 
of  Anglo-Saxon  democracy.  They  are  found  in  the 
main,  however,  in  the  ideas  which  dominated  the 
eighteenth  century— the  century  of  revolt  and  revolu- 
tion. Although  these  ideas  may  be  found  scattered  all 
along  the  history  of  human  thought,  it  was  not  until  the 
eighteenth  century  that  they  became  the  powerful  causes 
of  a  world  movement  of  the  democracy  of  the  modern 
world. 

In  one  word,  modern  democracy  had  its  rise  in  indi- 
vidualism. "It  is  impossible  to  understand  the  errors  of 
a  great  writer,"  says  the  late  Professor  Edward  Caird, 
"unless  we  do  justice  to  the  truth  which  underlies  them." 


RISE  OF  DEMOCRACY 


67 


The  same  thing  may  be  said  of  world  movements.  There 
was  a  profound  reaUty  underneath  the  world  movement 
of  eighteenth  century  individuahsm.  While  it  is 
incontestable  that  Jacobinism  is  the  logical  developmeni 
of  individualism  it  is  also  true  that  modern  history  begins 
with  the  rise  of  individualism. 

The  contribution  to  progress  of  individualism  as  a 
theory  of  life  must  not  be  belittled.  It  was  one  of  the 
great  phases  of  transition,  and  once  lay  toward  progress. 
But  it  lies  in  that  direction  no  longer.  Individualism  per- 
formed its  mission.  But  individualism  is  a  revolu- 
tionary creed.  It  was  the  vehicle  of  transition.  Revo- 
lution is  not  a  rational  and  permanent  status. 


[-■ 


The  century  in  which  and  of  which  the  American 
nation  was  born  was  one  which  Carlyle  declared  has  no 
history  and  can  have  little  or  none,  "a  century  so  opulent 
in  accumulated  falsities — opulent  in  that  way  as  never 
century  was!  Which  had  no  longer  the  consciousness 
of  being  false,  so  false  had  it  grown — a  hypocrisy  worthy 
of  being  hidden  and  forgotten.  To  me  the  eighteenth 
century  has  nothing  grand  in  it,  except  thai  grand  uni- 
versal suicide,  named  French  Revolution,  by  which  it 
terminated  its  otherwise  most  worthless  existence  with  at 
least  one  worthy  act;  setting  fire  to  its  old  home  and 
self,  and  going  up  in  flame  and  volcanic  explosion.  .  .  . 
There  was  need  once  more  of  a  Divine  Revelation  to 
the  torpid,  frivolous  children  of  men  if  they  were  not  to 
sink  altogether  into  the  ape  conditions"  (Frederick  the 
Great).  "How  this  man,"  continues  Carlyle,  speaking 
of  Frederick  II,  "officially  a  king  withal,  comported  him- 


68 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


self  in  the  eighteenth  century  and  managed  not  to  be  a 
Liar  and  Charlatan  as  his  century  was,  deserves  to  be 
seen  a  little  by  men  and  kings."    One  of  the  regrets  that 
Carlyle  is  no  longer  with  us,  is  that  it  is  now  forever 
impossible  to  call  his  attention  to  the  American  continent 
— to  our  George  Washington  and  a  few  other  men — 
a  LaFayette — a   Steuben — who   were   not   liars    (how 
he  would  have  relished  the  story  of  an  eighteenth  century 
boy,  a  hatchet,  and  a  cherry  tree),  and  were  not  charla- 
tans either.     Perhaps  the  fact  would  have  interested 
him,  too,  that  there  was  an  American  Revolution  with 
the  adoption  of  certain  eighteenth  century  principles  in 
'76   and   certain   nineteenth   century   principles   in    '87 
which    it   may   take  the   whole   twentieth   century   to 
catch  up  to.     If  it  was  not  the  spirit  of  this  unmen- 
tionable  eighteenth   century,   which   was   the  dynamic 
cause    of    two    revolutions    which    have    made    over 
the  world,  and  which  have  set  human  footsteps  in  a 
pathway  never  before  trodden  by  mankind,  it  was  the 
spirit  of  the  eighteenth  century  which  became  the  melt- 
ing pot,  in  which  world-thought  was  reduced  to  fire 
mist  again,  and  out  of  which  chaos,  cosmos,  has  (let  us 
dare  to  hope)  begun  to  cast  up  its  rugged  headlands. 
Nevertheless,  when  all  has  been  said,  Carlyle's  char- 
acterization is  in  substance  correct  and  it  is  one  of  those 
calamitous  coincidences  whose  evil  effects  a  thousand 
years  may  not  overcome,  that  the  philosophism  of  the 
eighteenth  century  has  had  so  much  to  do  with  the  begin- 
nings  of   our   nation,    with    its    institutions — that    our 
national  life  was,  like  Noah's  Ark,  launched  on  this 
chaotic  flood. 


RISE  OF  DEMOCRACY 


69 


It  is  a  fairly  wide  field — which  we  could  not  traverse  in 
a  lifetime — this  pitiful,  and  uninteresting,  and  reeking 
life  and  thought  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  thinkers 
who  have  most  profoundly  affected  it  are  those, 
unfortunately,  to  whom  in  a  great  measure  we  still  are 
bending  the  knee  of  obeisance. 

The  century  was  materialistic.  This  is  perhaps  the 
most  that  can  be  said  of  it  in  four  words — and  perhaps 
the  worst. 

The  eighteenth  century  is  an  object  lesson  of  a 
materialistic  philosophy. 

Perhaps  this  is  the  worst  that  can  be  said  for  a  phi- 
losophy. Carlyle  speaks  of  a  similar  object  lesson  in 
Diderot:  "So  that  Diderot's  Atheism  comes  if  not  to 
much,  yet  to  something :  we  learn  this  from  it,  and  from 
what  it  stands  connected  with,  and  may  represent  for  us : 
that  the  Mechanical  System  of  Thought  is,  in  its  essence. 
Atheistic;  that  whosoever  will  admit  no  organ  of  truth 
but  logic,  and  nothing  to  exist  but  what  can  be  argued 
of,  must  ever  content  himself  with  this  sad  result,  as 
the  only  solid  one  he  can  arrive  at;  and  so  with  the 
best  grace  he  can.  'of  ether  make  a  gas ;  of  God  a  force ; 
of  the  second  world  a  coffin;  of  man  an  aimless  non- 
descript 'little  better  than  a  kind  of  vermin'  "  (Carlyle, 
Essay  on  Diderot). 

The  blight  of  eighteenth  century  life  and  thought  still 
hangs  over  the  earth  like  a  pall.  It  is  the  same  curse 
which  darkens  the  days  we  live  in,  immensely  modified 
but  in  no  way  mitigated  by  our  great  prosperity  and  our 
physical  science.  It  has  been  immensely  modified  and 
mitigated,    but    it    is    because    we   are   changing    our 


70 


THF.  N1<:\V  POLITICS 


eighteenth  century  point  of  view.  We  are  abandoning 
atheism,  materiahsm,  Hedonism,  individuaHsm.  We 
have  discovered  tlie  spirit  again.  Patriotism  and  the 
ideal  may  Hve  once  more,  to  the  contrary  Dr.  Cabanis 
and  his  doctrine  that  poetry  and  rehgion  are  "the  product 
of  the  smaller  intestines." 

A  great  deal — and  perhaps  a  great  deal  too  much — 
has  been  said  as  to  the  Frencii  Revolution  being  the  begin- 
ning of  modern  history.  It  is  also  a  shabby  truism  that 
the  nineteenth  century  is  unintelligible  without  reference 
to  tlie  same  event. 

The  real  truth  is  that  which  Carlyle  missed,  that  the 
beginning  of  the  American  nation  is  the  beginning  of 
modern  history,  because  the  whole  world  has  been  modi- 
fied by  the  development  of  democracy  in  the  United 
States.  It  is  not  cosmopolitan  judginent  to  reckon  the 
French  Revolution  as  the  beginning  of  millennial  days. 
Parenthetically  it  has  not  fulfilled  its  promise  of  liberty, 
equality,  and  fraternity. 

We  must  consider  the  American  and  French  Revolu- 
tions as  both  the  outgrowth  of  the  spirit  of  tlie  eighteenth 
century,  witii  a  strong  probability  that  the  second  would 
not  have  taken  place  had  not  the  first  been  a  succe.'^s.  If 
Napoleon  was  right,  or  even  nearly  so,  when  he  declared 
that  if  Rousseau  had  not  lived  there  would  have  been  no 
French  Revolution,  may  we  not  conclude  with  some 
assurance  that  the  conflagration  broke  out  in  France  be- 
cause the  "heather  was  afire"  here? 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  influence  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution upon  the  world,  and  even  upon  France,  iias  been 
greatly    overv  amated.      It    is    one    of    the    most    lurid 


RISE  OF  DEMOCRACY  71 

dramas  ever  presented  on  the  stage  of  history.  And 
there  was  some  element  of  play  acting  in  it,  too,  with 
some  of  its  second  rate  gilded  and  garish  humbug  and 
unreal  emotion.     Of  course  only  some. 

Wliatever  germinal  ideas  there  were  in  that  soil  of 
French  thought  came  mostly  from  Great  Britain.  And 
germinal  initiative  came  from  America.  This  particular 
cataclysm  at  least  is  the  offspring  of  British  thought  and 
American  e.xample.  Nor  has  America  been  without  her 
germinal  thinking,  for  the  theories  and  formulas  and 
phrases  which  saw  service  in  two  revolutions  and  which 
perhaps  defined  Jacobinism  on  two  hemispheres  were  all 
debated  and  threshed  out,  stated  and  accepted  in  national 
and  local  declarations  in  America  before  they  became  cur- 
rent in  France.  "Ten  years  after  the  American  Alliance 
(with  France)  the  Rights  of  Man  which  had  been  pro- 
claimed in  Philadelphia  were  repeated  at  Versailles" 
(Lord  Acton,  History  of  Freedom). 

Read  the  names  of  those  who  were  makers  of  Revo- 
lution in  France.  We  find  the  most  of  them  in  London 
with  Pope  and  Addison  and  Bolingbroke  and  Swift,  with 
Newton  and  Hume  and  Hobbes  and  Locke.  We  find 
them  in  the  coffee  houses,  salons.  We  see  them  studying 
English  laws  and  institutions  with  English  literature 
— Voltaire  and  Montesquieu,  Brissot  and  Buffon,  Mau- 
pertius  and  Gournay.  Jussieu,  Morellet  and  LaFayette, 
Helvetius,  Cloots  and  Mirabeau,  the  Rolands  and  Rous- 
seau.* Through  these  minds  tlie  Revolution  siphoned  its 
force  from  the  germinal  minds  and  institutions  of 
Britain  into  France. 


'  Mnrl?y>  Voltairf 


72 


THE  NLW  POLITICS 


Both  England  and  America  had  more  influence  on 
France  than  France  has  exercised  on  either  country.  As 
Professor  Ritchie  has  said,  "When  LaFayette  sent  the 
key  of  the  Bastille  by  Thomas  Paine  to  George  Wash- 
ington, he  was  in  a  picturesque  symbol  confessing  the 
debt  of  France  to  America"  (Natural  Rights,  p.  3), 

"What  gave  Rousseau  a  power  far  exceeding  that  which 
any  political  writer  had  ever  attained  was  the  progress 
of  events  in  America"  (Lord  Acton). 

That  was  a  strange  and  fateful  alliance  between  the 
successors  of  the  Grande  Monarche  and  the  American 
sans-culuttcs,  for  French  nobles  and  common  soldiers 
alike  went  home  from  the  American  Revolution  to  pro- 
claim the  blessings  of  freedom  and  the  dignity  of  revolt. 
In  any  event  even  without  the  alliance  the  whole  French 
nation  would  have  been  ready  to  sympathize  with  the 
American  insurgents.  Were  they  not  enemies  of  Eng- 
land? Were  they  not  allies  of  France?  Were  they  not 
uttering  thoughts  which  Frenchmen  hardly  dared  to 
dream?  The  spirit  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  be- 
coming clothed  in  flesh,  and  blood,  and  gimpowder — 
especially  blood  and  gunpowder — and  as  some  one  has 
said,  the  whole  people  of  France  were  watching  with 
bated  breath  the  struggle  for  liberty  as  if  from  behind 
prison  doors,  and,  as  it  were,  through  iron  bars. 

"American  independence  was  the  beginning  of  a  new 
era,"  says  Lord  Acton.  "Not  merely  as  a  revival  of 
Revolution,  but  because  no  other  Revolution  ever  pro- 
ceeded from  so  slight  a  cause  or  was  ever  conducted  with 
so  much  moderation.  The  European  monarchies  sup- 
ported it.     The  greatest  statesmen  in  England  averred 


RISE  OF  D''MOCRACY 


73 


that  it  was  just.  It  establishetl  a  pure  democracy.  .  .  . 
It  resembled  no  other  known  democracy,  for  it  respected 
freedom,  authority  and  law.  .  .  .  Ancient  Europe  opened 
its  mind  to  two  new  ideas — that  Revolution  with  very 
little  provocation  may  be  just;  and  that  democracy  in 
very  large  dimensions  may  be  safe." 

The  philosophy,  oi  ratht  -  philosophism  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  did  not  profoundly  affect  public  opinion 
in  France  until  the  century  was  half  gone.  A  few  words 
were  on  men's  V.ps — reason  and  tolerance,  liberty, 
equality — and  a  na*'on  made  them  catchwords — formed 
a  creed.  The  philosophers  had  abandoned  the  Cartesian- 
ism  which  had  reigned  in  French  thought  and  they  had 
learned  the  precepts  of  Bacon,  the  physics  of  Newton, 
and  the  sensationalism  of  Locke.  These  they  brought 
across  the  channel.  The  translation  of  English  phi- 
losophy into  French  life  lost  the  conservative  and  judi- 
cious British  temper.  It  became  aggressive  with  being 
radical.  The  Briton  could  think  radically  and  act  con- 
servatively. Not  so  the  Latin.  The  restated  material- 
istic individualism  of  Hobbes  and  Locke  became  revo- 
lutionary. But  it  rediscovered  th  t  individual  and  his 
dignity  was  asserted  as  it  never  had  been  even  in  the 
morning  of  Greece.  To  Voltaire,  Diderot,  and  the  En- 
cyclopsdists,  the  masses  were  unconsidered  canailie,  but 
Rousseau  conceived  his  philosophy  as  Michelet  after- 
ward recorded  the  revolutionary  record  of  his  work  from 
the  standpoint  "of  the  principal  actor,  the  anonymous 
hero,  the  people." 

The  doctrine  that  the  individual  is  both  starting  point 
and  end  of  political  philosophy,  implied  in  the  writings 


74  THE  NEW  I'OLITICS 

of  Grotius,  had  been  elaborate*!  by  llobbes  and  Locke, 
and  taken  by  Voltaire,  Diderot,  and  Rousseau.  It  be- 
came the  foundation  of  the  prevaihng  philosopliy  of  the 
siccle. 

Locke  had  i)ersuaded  eighteenth-century  France  that 
all  knowledge  proceetls  from  exi^rience.  that  experience 
is  the  outcome  of  combinations  or  permutations  of  our 
physical  sensations.  Despising  metaphysics,  the  move- 
ment of  the  new  philosophy  seemed  to  tend  toward  those 
things  within  the  field  of  the  five  senses  and  conse- 
quently an  impetus  was  given  to  the  sciences,  in  all  of 
which  great  progress  was  made,  but  with  reaction  toward 
an  atheistic  materialism  as  hopeless  and  desolate  as  tliat 
in  which  any  nation  was  ever  lost.  But  under  the  new 
enlightenment  there  were  strange  paradoxes  and  incon- 
sistencies. The  somber  messengers  of  atheism  rolled 
stones  away  from  sepulchers  where  the  Church  had  laid 
the  crucified  virtues,  and  Christian  principles  came 
forth  from  the  dead ;  liberty,  equality,  justice,  fraternity. 

It  is  impossible  to  connect  logically  with  a  blank 
atheistic  materialism  the  divine  sentiment  of  fraternal- 
ism  or  to  conceive  of  a  logical  place  in  a  Godless  uni- 
verse for  a  brotherhood  of  orphans.  It  is  impossible  to 
Iiarmonize  a  conception  of  man  as  a  sensuous  conscious- 
ness without  a  soul,  with  a  faith  in  liberty,  justice  and 
toleration. 

There  is  no  logical  sequence  between  a  belief  which  not 
merely  negatives,  but  which  holds  that  science  proves 
there  is  neither  God,  soul,  freedom,  or  hope  of  here- 
after, and  a  belief  in  the  essential  anrl  inliereiit  dignity 
of  the  least  and  humblest  of  all  the  human  race.    Neither 


RISE  OF  DEMOCRACY 


75 


I 


is  there  logical  relationship  between  their  altruism  and 
their  individualistn. 

We  must  look  further  for  explanation  of  the  fact 
that  they  so  often  api)ear  together,  and  wonder  how 
religious  a  race  eighteenth-century  I'rance  would  have 
been,  had  only  the  Church  been  true. 

The  French  Economistcs  (Physiocrats),  who  were  the 
precursors  of  Adam  Smith  and  ortho<lox  political  econ- 
omy, had  also  derived  their  inspiration  from  Dutch  and 
English  sources.  Quesnay,  following  Grotius  and  Locke, 
calls  his  system  physiocratic  since  he  conceives  it  a 
development  of  the  nation  of  a  law  of  nature — or  that 
"Constitution  of  Government  which  is  best  for  man 
because  most  in  accordance  with  Nature."  Natural  order 
is  antecedent  to  natural  right.  They  have  been  accused 
of  advocating  a  paternal  despotism.  They  did  advocate 
state  activity  in  poor  relief  and  education.  But  they 
paved  the  way  for  hisses  faire  and  revolution.  Their 
general  political  doctrine  was  that  of  the  social  contract 
of  the  English  school,  that  government  is  an  evil  (but 
necessary  up  to  the  point  of  gaining  security  of  person 
and  property).  In  economics  labor  should  be  unfettered 
and  trade  free  and  property  sacred.  This  is  the  bour- 
geois creed. 

The  principal  contribution  of  Montesquieu  that  social 
as  well  as  physical  phenomena  are  to  be  regulated  by 
jus  natura  easily  falls  in  with  the  deism  of  the  period 
and  forms  the  basis  of  the  philosophy  (where  doubtless 
Montesquieu  and  Voltaire  learned  it)  of  Bolingbroke, 
Swift,  Pope,  of  "whatever  is,  is  right."  It  is  a  swift 
transition  from  natural  law  to  natural  rights  and  upon 


? 


76 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


this  the  political  theory  of  the  eighteenth  century  is 
founded  and  issues  at  once  in  individualism,  free  trade, 
and  laisscc  faire. 

Montesquieu,  who  had  studied  closely  the  British  Con- 
stitution and  whose  theory  of  government  had  been  pro- 
foundly influenced  by  the  writings  of  Locke,  was  an 
advocate  of  Constitutional  reform  in  France  along 
English  lines,  as  opposed  to  the  revolutionary  theories 
cf  Rousseau  which  were  also  drawn  from  the  study  of 
Locke.  But  a  revolution  like  that  of  if)88  in  England 
could  hardly  be  a  peaceable  and  personally  conducted 
affair  in  France,  a  country  where  the  crown  was  supreme 
and  where  there  had  been  no  assembly  of  the  States 
General  from  1614  to  1789 — a  hundred  and  seventy-five 
years.  The  doctrines  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  people 
and  the  social  contract  Rousseau  took  from  Hobbes  and 
Locke  and  adapted  to  tlie  continental  environment. 
The  doctrine  of  the  law  of  nature  was  acceptable  to  tlie 
French  masses  mostly  because  it  offered  something  radi- 
cally different  from  the  existing  regime.  What  they 
had  was  not  natural.  What  was  natural  must  be  good. 
The  doctrine  went  through  many  ff)rms  and  lent  itself 
to  almost  any  number  of  individual  interpretations  while 
insisting  on  the  right  of  individual  interpretation.  The 
popular  feeling  became  inflamed.  The  doctrine  became 
aggressive  and  revolutionary.  One  stream  of  thouglif 
flowing  from  it,  with  its  catcliwords  of  "reason."  and 
"nature,"  etc..  became  crystallized  in  the  atheistic  sys- 
tems of  Holbach.  Diderot,  and  the  Encyclopaxlists  and 
the  work  of  Helvetius,  wliich  Louis  Rlanc  characterizes 
as  "The  very  code  of  imihidiuilism,  the  theory  of  my- 


I<      I  OF  DEMOCRACY 


n 


self."  "Thus  ir.  book  of  Hclvetius  the  absolute  was 
banished  from  the  world.  Virtue,  truth,  devotion,  hero- 
ism, intellect,  genius,  everything  was  relative,  and  each 
one  judging  of  everything  but  by  himself  alone,  society 
fell  into  dissolution." 

Rousseau  taught  that  history  was  a  process  arranged 
between  conspiracies  of  priests  and  lawyers  and  kings, 
to  defraud  the  people  of  their  rights;  therefore  laws  and 
religions  are  humbug  and  must  be  swept  away.  He 
claimed  that  the  rich  and  crafty  were  able  to  turn  to 
their  own  advantage  the  very  desires  and  efforts  of  the 
poor  for  their  own  protection.  "They  formed  a  project," 
he  says,  "the  most  astute  that  ever  entered  the  human 
spirit,  by  which  to  convert  their  adversaries  into  their 
defenders,  to  inspire  them  with  wholly  new  ma.xims, 
and  to  introduce  institutions  which  would  be  as  favor- 
able to  them  as  natural  law  and  the  law  of  the  strong 
were  the  contrary.  This  succeeded  in  their  institutions 
of  law  and  government,  when  civilization  gave  new  fet- 
ters to  the  feeble,  and  new  forces  to  the  rich,  which  de- 
stroyed beyond  recovery  natural  liberty,  fixed  forever  the 
law  of  projierty  and  inequality,  converted  a  clever  usur- 
pation into  an  irrevocable  right,  and  for  the  profit  of  a 
few  ambitious  men,  subjected  henceforth  all  the  human 
race  to  servitude  and  misery." 

If  the  common  people  were  everywhere  bom  free  and 
were  everywhere  in  chains,  Rousseau's  followers  claimed 
that  it  was  Mme  for  them  to  make  another  contract  and 
take  sovereignty  back  into  their  own  hands.  In  a  way 
Rousseau's  metho<l  was  q-iite  logical  on  a  deistic  basis, 
but  quite  unimaginable  from  a  theistic  point  of  view. 


\.t\ 

til. 


i  ra 


a 


78 


THE  KKW  POLITICS 


It   was  something  like  this:   Man  cannot   improve  on 
God's  method.     Natural  law  is  belter  tlian  man's  law. 
The  method  of  nature  is  better  than  the  artificial  method 
of  man.     Therefore  let  us  go  back  to  nature.     The  idea 
of  an  immanent  God  working  througli  the  reason  and 
will  of  man  never  in  the  remotest  sense  occurred  to  iiim. 
This  is  wliere  he  missed  his  clue.    He  recurred  to  a  state 
of  nature  much  like  the  paradise  of  Calvin  out  of  which 
man  fell  all  at  once,  only  to  conceive  of  it  as  something 
out  of  which  man  had   been   falling  for  a  long  time. 
Pursuing  this  chimerical  piiantasm  instead  of  returning 
to  the  alleged  original  paradise,  he  went  back  to  nature 
"red  in  tooth  and  claw."  and  adopted  the  methods  of  a 
reptilian  age,  with  all  the  silurian  instincts  of  the  child- 
hood of  the  world— /(;i.f.jr5  fairc   individualism.     The 
logic  is  irrefutable  if  the  premises  are  granted.     If  the 
woes  of  mankind  are  due  to  the  intervention  of  human 
intelligence  and  will— in  other  wortls  human  institutions 
—take  these  away.     Since  all  government  is  slavery,  the 
less  government  we  have  the  better.    Laisscs  faire,  lais- 
scz  passer,  laisscz  alter.     Thus  arose  the  democracy  of 
individualism.     This  is  why  the  eigiiteenth  century  be- 
lieved too  little  in  any  government,  too  little  in  law  and 
order,  and  too  much  in  personal  liberty  and  the  policy 
of  drift  and  chance.    Rousseau's  belief  that  the  work  of 
civilization  should  be  undone  so  far  as  possible  found  a 
champion    in    Robespierre;   and    the   corollary   of   this 
belief  that  the  work  of  civilization,  i.  e.,  of  man's  con- 
scious effort  politically  to  improve  himself  .should,  as 
far  as  possible,  be  avoided,  found  expression  in  the  laisscs 
fairc  democracy  of  Thomas  JeflFerson  and  his  school. 


RISI-:  OF  DEMOCRACY 


79 


And  yet  this  man,  Rousseau,  who  did  more  than  any 
one  modern  for  the  establisliment  of  democracy,  declared 
it  a  government  for  gods  but  unfit  for  man.  Half  a 
maniac  and  the  other  half  a  degenerate  (a  whole 
prophet  nevertheless  of  these  two  halves),  holding  to 
neither  system,  nor  logic,  nor  consistency — a  neurotic 
and  sentimentalist — he  played  on  one  emotion  until  he 
touched  the  heart  of  luirope.  The  wiiole  message  may 
be  summed  up  in  the  sovereignty  of  the  mob.  In  this 
he  created  a  desfjot  more  frightful  than  any  which  had 
ever  cursed  the  ancient  regime.  It  was  a  genie  he  let 
out  of  the  bottle,  mild  enough  at  first  sight,  but  a  raven- 
ing despot  at  best — that  of  a  reckless  anarchical  majority 
of  a  mob — why  not  bestow  upon  it  an  epithet  Voltaire 
once  gave  to  Pasquier  (Letter  to  D'Alembert),  "A 
tiger  with  the  eyes  of  a  calf"?  Under  this  regime  "In 
the  name  of  the  'Social  Contract  Robespierre  and  his 
clique  put  to  death  all  wliose  interests  were  opposed  to  the 
Rousseau  theory  of  the  state"  (Macpherson — Century 
of  Political  Development,  vide  p.  39-40) — these  men 
"who  began  their  democratic  career  by  preaching  the 
gospel  of  Liberty,  Equality,  and  Fraternity.  Equality 
became  the  equality  of  the  brigand  with  his  'stand  and 
deliver';  liberty  became  the  liberty  of  the  executioner  to 
take  off  the  heads  of  his  victims;  and  fraternity  became 
the  fraternity  of  Cain  when  he  spilled  his  brother's 
blood  upon  the  ground"  (idem).  "Out  of  Rousseau's 
gospel  of  Liberty  grew  the  Terror  and  thence  grew 
Napoleon's  gosi)el  of  Despotism"  (idem). 


The  Protestant  Reformation  had  been  a  movement  of 


8o 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


the  individualism  which  assailed  the  foundations  of 
Church  and  State — Catholicism  and  feudalism.  It  was 
successful  in  that  it  rediscovered  the  value  and  dignity 
of  the  human  individual  qua  individual.  Indeed,  this 
was  the  contribution  of  Protestantism.  Its  failure  lay 
in  offering  a  point  of  view  wiiich  laid  the  foundations  of 
the  great  movements  of  individualism,  without  offering 
a  coliesive  principle  or  a  constructive  idea  sufficient  for 
Church  or  State.  And  for  Church  and  State  the 
Reformation  began  the  movement  which  founded  its 
philosophy  on  a  transitional  idea. 

Tiie  theories  which  produced  the  revolutions  of  the 
eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  had  created  the 
Reformation  before  tliem.  They  brought  fortli  fruit  of 
disintegration  and  revolt  in  spirit,  method,  and  result. 
The  product  of  the  ideas  of  the  Reformation  is  seen  in 
the  revolutionary  creed  and  program.  "Calvin's  Ge- 
neva," says  the  late  Professor  Ritchie,  "in  due  time 
brought  forth  Rousseau,  and  English  Puritanism  or 
American  soil  produced  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence." 

The  fatal  oversight  of  the  theorists  of  Reformation 
and  Revolution  was  that  they  found  ultimate  reality  in 
the  individual.  They  denied  it  of  those  spiritual  and 
other  relations  which  existed  and  which  nu'ght  exist  be- 
tween indivi(hiais.  There  was  no  reality  in  the  state — 
in  the  church — ;,i  the  family.  Individualism  declared 
for  atomism  and  anarchy.  There  was  no  universal 
principle — no  vital  binding  principle  which  could  give 
reality  to  a  human  institution.  Reality  existed  solelv  in 
the  human  monad.    Thus  our  thinking  became  atiinistic. 


RISE  OF  demcx:racy 


8i 


It  was  without  form  and  void.  It  gave  us  both  theory 
and  practice  of  disintegration.  Somewhere  here,  I  take 
it,  is  the  nub  of  the  ethical,  which  is  to  say,  the  philosophi- 
cal, side  of  this  question  of  politics.  And  if  this  proposi- 
tion is  true  the  assumptions  of  individualism  are  false 
which  refer  everything  to  the  individual  court  of  appeal, 
or  in  other  words  to  some  billion  and  a  half  courts  of  ap- 
peal; and  which  finds  ultimate  reality  in  the  individual 
man,  or  in  other  words,  a  billion  and  a  half  individual 
men. 

The  Reformation  is  said  to  have  been  an  apoeal  to 
reason.  If  so,  it  is  barely  in  the  half  sense  of  the  reason 
of  he  individual  man  and  not  the  reason  of  the  social 
or  the  corporate  mind.  If  it  began  the  emancipation  of 
the  individual  from  slavery  to  the  tyranny  of  Church 
and  State,  it  disclosed  no  rationale  of  Church  and  State. 

The  result  of  this  in  the  temporal  affairs  of  men  was 
anarchy.  The  revolutionary  philosophy  brought  forth 
a  revolutionary  era,  and  the  Church  was  so  split  into 
screaming  and  discordant  sects,  that  a  witty  Frenchman 
could  complain  of  America  as  the  land  where  they  had 
two  hundred  reiij^ions  and  only  one  gravy. 

The  eigiiteeiitli  centur.  men  wrote  the  end  of  the  Dark 
Ages,  not  the  beginning  of  a  New  Age  (Mazzini). 
Their  copiers  and  imitators  have  perfected  the  work  of 
transition — the  phase  we  are  now  passing  through — and 
if  we  crystallize  the  transitional  and  negative  principle 
into  permanent  institutions,  we  will  reduce  it  to  an  ab- 
surdity and  a  crime.  Out  of  the  disintegrating  ideas  of 
ti-.e  individualists  of  the  eighteenth  century,  in  which 
the  old  regime  was  dissolved,  do  not  appear  the  alfirma- 


m 


^^1 


82  THE  NEW  POLITICS 

live  principles  which  contain  the  promise  and  potency  of 
the  New  Age.    The  philosophy  of  "The  Enhghtenment" 
was  dangerously  near  the  apotheosis  of  selfish  instinct 
divorced    from   God    and    man.      It   believed    in    men. 
It    had    no    faith    in   man.      It    was    needed    to   break 
up  the  old  foundations  of  accumulated  tyranny.     Indi- 
vidualism stormed  the  Bastile  and  erected  the  guillotine. 
Indi\  idualKsin  entered  the  arena  of  accusation,  sat  in  the 
tribunals,  and  drove  the  tumbrils  of  the  revolution.    Like 
Cadmus   it   slew   the  dragon  but    it   planted  his  teeth. 
From  the  bloody  ground  where  the  red-eyed  despot  had 
so  long  guarded  the  waters  of  liberty  sprang  the  mighty 
army  of  destruction,  each  ready  to  slay  his  companion 
in  arms.     A  vast  army,  each  dead  by  a  comrade's  hand, 
is  the  allegory  of  individualism  handed  us  by  the  Greeks. 
The  French  Revolution  is  its  realization  by  the  eight- 
eenth   century — in    this   blind    unreasoning   strife — this 
desolating  hatred,  this  awful   rage  of  every  man   for 
himself 

In('    .dualism  furnished  purely  a  destructive  and  nega- 

ive  rce.  When  the  destructive  work  has  been  done 
.ind  debris  has  been  cleared  away,  individualism  has 
ha  lav  and  is  no  longer  an  adecjuate  theory  of  life. 

Tbt    aichitect  and  builders  must    follow  the  wrecking 
cr?        The  creed  of  the  Revolution  has  done  its  work  in 

the  world.    It  is  not  the  creed  for  to-day.     It  has  ceased 

to  be  true. 

Tlie  democracies  of  the  past  have  been  in  a  large  de- 
gree fonns  of  the  democracy  of  individualism.  Even 
an  examination  of  the  democracy  of  the  Greeks  shows 
a  theory   in  some   respects  identical  with   that  of  the 


RISE  OF  DEMOCRACY 


83 


Jeffersonian  democracy  over  two  thousand  years  later. 
The  democracy  of  individualism  upheld  slavery  and  ex- 
ploited it.  Is  not  the  joke  on  their  political  ancestor  and 
their  followers  and  their  creed;  upon  the  man  who 
heralded  with  fanfare  of  trumphets  that  all  men  are 
created  free  and  equal,  and  that  life,  liberty,  and  happi- 
ness are  the  inalienable  rights  of  all?  If  the  democracy 
of  individualism  perpetuated  human  slavery  until  within 
the  memory  of  men  living,  and  if  the  human  race  is 
some  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  old,  what  chance  is 
there  for  the  democracy  of  altruism  in  our  day? 

It  was  the  democracy  of  individualism  which  upheld 
slavery— the  democracy  of  all  rights  and  no  duties— and 
neitiier  a  democracy  nor  a  civilization  nor  a  Christianity 
of  individualism  ever  has  been  or  ever  can  be  ethical. 
As  long  as  human  slavery  existed  in  our  country,  the 
catchwords  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and 
Jefifersonian  Democracy— "Liberty,"  "Equality,"  and 
"Fraternity"— were  all  phrases  of  a  farce  which  had 
shrieked  until  it  was  hoarse.  Not  only  was  the  politics 
of  our  founders  inadequate,  but  we  have  not  been  true 
even  to  those  ideals,  for  our  entire  social  philosophy  to-day 
revolves  around  the  idea  underneath  the  Declaration  of 
Indejiendence — individualism — sufficient  for  any  Protes- 
tantism, political  or  religious,  so  long  as  politics  or 
religion  is  content  to  remain  in  the  stage  of  mere  Protes- 
tantism, or  even  Dissent. 

The  democracy  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  the 
result  of  the  conflict  between  individual  freedom  and 
organized  selfishness.  The  failure  of  the  democracy 
of    individualism    has    been     in    the    assumption    that 


84 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


there   is   no   individual   selfishness    and    no   organized 

freedom. 

Modern  democracy  had  its  rise  in  individualism.  It 
is  the  task  of  the  twentieth  century  to  see  that  it  does  not 
liave  its  fall  in  individualism. 


CHAPTER  VI 


SPIRIT  OF  JACOBINISM 

It  was  the  American  Revolution,  not  the  French 
Revolution,  if  it  was  a  revolution  at  all,  which  was  the 
beginning  of  modern  history.  On  the  other  hand  it  is 
quite  true  that  the  Revolution  of  the  French  and  its 
underlying  ideas  profoundly  modified  the  results  of  the 
American  struggle  and  determined  the  course  of  Ameri- 
can political  thought  for  a  hundred  years.  American 
Jacobinism  is  largely  a  French  importation.  It  is  the 
French-American  interpretation  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. If  the  French  Revolution  was  the  direct  outcome 
of  British  thought  and  American  example,  the  ideas  of 
the  Revolution  and  the  Red  Terror  issued  in  America 
in  anarchy  and  disintegration — in  a  word,  in  Jacobinism. 

"The  French  Revolution,"  says  Col.  Higginson,  "really 
drew  a  red-hot  plowshare  through  the  history  of  Amer- 
ica as  well  as  through  that  of  France.  It  not  merely  di- 
vided parties,  but  molded  them ;  gave  them  their  demarca- 
tions, their  watchwords,  and  their  bitterness.  The  home 
issues  were  for  a  time  subordinate,  collateral :  the  real 
party  lines  were  established  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic." 

Robert  Goodloe  Harper,  the  South  Carolina  Federal- 
ist, in  a  debate  in  the  House  of  Foreign  Ministers,  out- 
lined the  situation  by  attacking  the  Republicans  (Demo- 
crats) as  revolutionists,  whom  he  divided  into  three 
classes:  the  philosophers,  the  Jacobins,  and  the  sans- 


Si  I 


m 


sr. 


THK  NKW  POLITICS 


culottes.  Tlie  first,  lie  said,  disconrsed  upon  all  the  mis- 
eries of  mankind,  tlie  vices  of  rulers — "all  of  which  they 
engage  to  remove  provided  their  theories  should  once  l)e 
adopted.  The  Jacobins  are  tyrants  in  ix>\vcr  and  deitia- 
gugues  when  not.  Jefferson,"  he  said,  "returned  from 
France  a  missionary  to  convert  Americans  to  the  new 
faith  of  Philosophical  Jacobinism." 

Jefferson  left  Paris,  soon  after  the  fall  of  the  Bastile, 
full  of  the  theories  of  the  Revolution  and  the  ideas  which 
generated  it.  In  this  he  was  at  one  with  the  mass  of 
the  American  people,  and  perhaps  it  was  due  to  this  that 
he  so  soon  rode  into  power.  The  Americans  were  grateful 
to  France  for  their  assistance.  They  hated  England. 
They  did  not  analyze  the  causes  of  the  French  alliance. 
They  soon  came  to  discover  the  anti-British  motives 
cropping  up  in  Napoleon  which  had  prompted  the  action 
of  Louis.  They  turned  to  those  who  inspired  the  Jacobin 
Terror.  They  took  no  trouble  to  distinguish  between 
the  King  and  nobles  who  had  sent  them  aid  and  the  mob 
who  had  cut  off  their  heads,  and  from  whom  LaFayette 
and  his  associates  were  fleeing  for  their  lives.  As  Oliver 
.says:'  "What  had  benefited  the  colonists,  if  we  may 
borrow  the  felicitous  phrase  whicli  Jefferson  subse- 
quently adopted  to  designate  the  most  unfortunate  of 
monarchs,  had  been  the  cold-blooded  calculation  of  'a 
human  tiger.'  What  had  comforted  their  hearts  had 
been  the  high-flown  chivalry  of  comrades  in  arms,  to 
whom  France  now  offered  the  generous  choice  of  furtive 
exile,  the  dungeon,  or  the  guillotine.  The  debt  of  Ameri- 
can gratitude  was  due,  if  at  all,  to  a  King  and  his  nobles, 

■  Alexander  Hamilton. 


SPIRIT  OF  JACOBINISM  87 

but  by  an  effort  of  the  popular  imagination  the  bill  was 
made  payable  to  the  assassins  of  the  true  creditors." 

How  easily  a  nation  may  be  led  to  any  extreme 
through  the  phrases  of  the  doctrinaire,  and  without  the 
balance  wheel  of  a  strong  government,  is  seen  in  the 
prodigious  i>opularity  of  Citizen  Genet,  which  became  so 
near  a  frenzy  that  that  "gentleman"  dared  insult  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  that  President  George 
Washington.  Jefferson,  who  had  secretly  encouraged 
his  intolerable  insolence,  and  who  had  done  his  utmost 
to  lead  the  United  States  again  to  war  against  Great 
Britain,  as  France's  ally,  was  compelled  by  Washington 
to  repudiate  Genet  and  promulgate  the  Washington  dec- 
laration of  neutrality,  which,  it  is  said,  was  as  violently 
execrated  by  the  democrats  as  a  declaration  of  monarchy. 
This  war,  into  which  the  bumptious  and  intolerable 
Genet  came  from  the  Revolutionary  tribunal  to  drag  the 
new  nation,  offered  what  advantage?  Unlimited  cost  in 
blood  and  money.  For  what?  To  defend  the  murderers 
of  Madame  Roland,  Condorcet,  Lavoisier — who  wanted 
two  weeks  of  life  to  finish  some  chemical  experimc-nts — 
and  did  not  get  them.  "Gratitude  to  France,"  under 
Jefferson  and  the  individualists,  wanted  war  with  Eng- 
land to  uphold  the  assassins  of  the  friends  of  America 
who  a  decade  or  two  since  had  fought  here  by  their  sides. 

Such  was  the  party  spirit  of  Jacobin  particularism — 
so  "intelligent"  and  so  "patriotic." 


That  which  the  Americans  have  been  taught  to  look 
upon  as  our  peculiar  blessing  may  prove  our  special 
curse.     Our  nation  was  born,  and,  as  it  were,  baptized 


MICROCOPY    RESOIUTION    TEST    CHART 

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88 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


in  the  flood-tide  of  eighteenth  century  individualism,  and 
we  have  made  the  awful  mistake  of  basing  a  permanent 
philosophy  upon  a  transitional  idea.  To  this  fact  we  owe 
the  dreary  wastes  of  our  first  three  quarters  of  a  century 
of  history,  our  civil  war,  and  the  despotism  of  modern 
financialism — i.  e.,  to  a  set  of  ideas  under  which  might 
becomes  riglit  and  the  big  eat  the  little. 

We  set  out  on  our  national  career  lashed  to  the  wild 
ass  of  license.  We  gained  our  liberty  and  we  lost  our 
freedom.  We  have  not  found  out  to  this  day  that  our 
whole  trouble  is  mostly  due  to  what  Taine  has  called 
"the  Jacobin  mind."  It  accepts  certain  "principles"  as 
political  axioms — the  rights  of  man — the  social  con- 
tract— liberty,  equality,  the  people — "such  are  the  ele- 
mentary notions.  Precise  or  not,  they  fill  the  brain  of 
the  new  secretary.  Frequently  they  are  there  only  as 
grandiose  and  vague  words."  The  Jacobin  mind  "is 
not  sound.  Of  the  two  faculties  which  ought  to  pull 
equally  and  together,  one  is  smitten  with  atrophy,  the 
other  with  hypertrophy.  The  counterpoise  of  facts 
is  not  there  to  balance  the  weight  of  formulas"  (La 
Conquete  Jacobin).  He  might  have  added  that  the 
balance  wheel  of  principle  is  not  there  to  justify  the 
conflict  of  interests. 

The  message  of  to-day  is  that  the  occupation  of  the 
Jacobin  is  gone.  He  shrieked  loud  and  long  for  his 
rights — and  got  them — and  more,  too.  He  has  been  reti- 
cent about  his  obligations.  He  discovered  that  l;:w  and 
government,  two  aspects  of  a  "necessary  evil,"  depend 
upon  contract — a  contract  never  made,  in  an  age  which 
never  existed.     Back  in  this  state  of  nature — in  a  pre- 


SPIRIT  OF  JACOBINISM 


89 


historic  and  mythic  paradise  whence  man  was  driven  by 
the  serpent  which  was  a  strange  compound  of  lawyer, 
priest,  and  king,  the  compact  was  made  which  gives 
vahdity  to  law  and  government,  which  are  concerned 
merely  with  the  protection  of  individual  rights  of  person 
and  property.  The  state  has  no  other  sphere.  The 
state  is  an  unpleasing  and  disagreeable  fiction.  Reality 
exists  alone  in  the  individual  and,  therefore,  the  state, 
having  no  reality,  has  no  ethical  function.  Thus  arose 
the  modern  democratic  business  theory  of  the  state. 

The  "pliilosophers"  of  the  Jacobin  era  were  solemnly 
accrediteo  A^ith  having  discovered  and  brought  forth  the 
charter  of  liberties  of  the  human  race,  and  with  having 
accouclied  the  muses  of  millennial  dawn.  A  hundred 
years  and  more  are  gone,  and  in  this  land  of  fertility 
and  plenty,  the  "greatest"  (in  a  material  sense),  the 
"richest,"  and  the  "most  prosperous"  the  world  has  ever 
seei  or  ever  will  see,  the  masses  of  the  people  are 
enmeshed  in  the  sinuous  toils  of  financialism;  millions 
of  the  housewives  of  the  men  who  are  doing  the  nation's 
work  are  unable  to  make  ends  meet,  owing  to  the  universal 
rise  in  prices,  and  are  haggling  in  the  market  place  over 
the  price  of  liver  or  the  cut  of  a  shank  bone,  while  one 
man  has  ten  or  twelve  thousand  million  dollars  (perhaps 
he  does  not  know  how  much)  and  eleven  others  like 
him  could  own  the  whole  nation,  and  everything  and 
everybody  in  it.  Somehow  the  Jacobin  has  failed  to  ful- 
fill his  promise,  and  democracy  is  somewhat  tardy  with 
the  millennium.  Swollen  with  the  conceit  of  our  hack- 
neyed phrases,  and  blinded  by  the  tissue  of  optimistic 
lies  with  which  we  have  surrounded  ourselves,  we  have 


90 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


boasted  of  our  inexhaustible  resources  while  a  few 
financiers  were  taking  them  away  from  us. 

The  views  of  many  of  the  fathers  are  better  knowrj 
than  those  of  one  whose  writings  could  be  studied  with 
profit  to-day.  In  his  remarkable  address  before  the 
Pennsylvania  convention  at  Philad^phia  in  1787, 
James  Wilson  said  of  the  fruits  of  anarchy  and  Jacobin- 
ism   (Works,   vol,   iii,   Lorenzo  Press,   Phila ,    1804) : 

"It  has  been  too  well  knovvn — it  has  been  too  severely 
felt — that  the  present  confederation  is  inadequate  to  the 
government  and  to  the  exigencies  of  the  United  States. 
The  great  struggle  for  liberty  in  this  country,  should  it 
be  unsuccessful,  will  probably  be  the  last  one  which  she 
will  have  for  her  existence  and  prosperity  in  any  part  of 
the  globe.  And  it  must  be  confessed  that  this  struggle  has, 
in  some  of  the  stages  of  its  progress,  been  attended  with 
symptoms  that  foreboded  no  fortunate  issue.  To  the 
iron  hand  of  tyranny  which  was  lifted  up  against  her 
she  manifested,  indeed,  an  intrepid  superiority.  .  .  .  But 
she  was  environed  by  dangers  of  another  kind,  and 
springing  from  a  very  different  source  .  .  .  licentious- 
ness was  secretly  undermining  the  rock  on  which  she 
stood."  "Those  whom  foreign  strength  could  not  over- 
power have  well  nigh  become  the  victims  of  internal 
anarchy." 

"The  commencement  of  peace  was  the  commencement 
of  every  disgrace  and  distress  that  could  befall  a  people  in 
a  peaceful  state.  Devoid  of  national  power,  we  could  not 
restrain  the  extravagance  of  our  importations,  nor  could 
we  derive  a  revenue  from  their  excess.  Devoid  of 
national  importance,  we  could  not  procure  for  our  ex- 


SPIRIT  OF  JACOBINISM  91 

ports  a  tolerable  sale  at  foreign  markets.  Devoid  of 
national  credit,  we  saw  our  public  securities  melt  iri  the 
hands  of  the  holders,  like  snow  before  the  sun.  Devoid 
of  national  dignity,  we  could  not,  in  some  instances,  per- 
form our  treaties  on  our  parts ;  and  in  other  instances, 
we  could  neither  obtain  nor  compel  the  performance  of 
them  on  the  part  of  others.  Devoid  of  national  energy, 
we  could  not  carry  into  execution  our  own  resolutions, 
decisions  or  laws." 

The  individualist  of  to-day  as  of  yesterday  has  missed 
his  guess  on  this  question  of  centralization.  It  is  not 
stronger  self-government,  it  is  not  national  self-govern- 
ment we  need  fear  just  now,  but  the  riot  and  anarchy 
prevailing  over  those  areas  where  there  is  neither  state 
nor  national  control  and  over  which  it  is  coolly  proposed 
by  Mr.  Bryan,  an  exponent  of  individualism  and  state 
rights,  that  forty-eight  popular  majorities  of  "earnest 
men  with  unselfish  purpose  and  controlled  only  for  the 
public  good  will  be  able  to  agree"  on  such  legislation 
as  shall  "preserve  for  the  future  the  inheritance  we  have 
received  from  a  bountiful  Providence." 

The  individualist  is  not  only  afraid  of  centralization, 
but,  like  his  predecessors,  he  is  afraid  of  the  very  prin- 
ciple of  union  and  of  national  sovereignty.  He  hates 
unity  per  se.  He  hates  nationality.  He  sees  monarchy 
in  cooperation  and  absolutism  in  an  attempt  to  get 
together.  Therefore,  he  is  raising  a  hue  and  cry.  The 
old  noises  which  assailed  the  ears  of  Washington  and 
Hamilton,  and  their  patriotic  confreres  are  prevailing 
in  the  market  place  to-day.  The  particularists  and  nulH- 
fiers  are  again  abroad  battering  the  Constitution  of  the 


;i^' 


92 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


United  States.  These  confusers  of  opinion  still  live  in 
a  revolutionary  world.  Like  Rip  van  Winkle,  they  have 
slept  through  years  of  progress,  but  unlike  him  they 
have  not  wakened.  They  consider  the  Declaraiion  of 
Independence  a  living  issue — on  Fourths  of  July — and 
deny  in  practice  the  principles  they  eloquently  maintain. 
They  have  not  advanced  beyond  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence. They  do  not  think  politically  in  terms  larger 
than  a  state  and  practically  no  larger  than  each  man  for 
himself.  They  fail  to  grasp  the  idea  of  nationality,  and 
ignorantly  or  maliciously  accuse  of  tyrannical  and  im- 
perialistic tendencies  those  who  lean  toward  nationality 
instead  of  state  rights ;  who  believe,  in  short,  in  the  possi- 
bility of  a  whole  people  governing  itself. 

It  is  not  quite  clear  whether  the  present  confusion  of 
the  individualist  of  strong  central  control  of  national 
concerns  with  monarchical,  imperialistic,  and  tyrannical 
tendencies  is  due  to  the  incompetence  of  its  advocates 
to  understand  the  nature  of  tnie  democracy,  or  whether 
it  is  a  deliberate  attempt  to  confuse  the  mind  of  the 
people  for  paltry  partisan  purposes. 

It  is,  however,  as  certain  that  there  are  a  few  left 
who  still  think  of  all  government  as  extraneous  and 
super-imposed,  and  consequently  all  government  as  an 
evil,  as  that  their  position  is  antiquated  and  inadequate 
to  the  demand  of  an  intelligent  democracy. 

This  fear  and  hatred  of  government,  this  confusion 
of  liberty  with  license,  this  leaning  toward  the  unre- 
strained impulse  of  savage  man,  this  jealousy  of  construc- 
tive reason  and  of  orderly  life,  constitute  the  faith  of  the 
eighteenth,  not  the  twentieth,  century.    It  is  the  old  revo- 


SPIRIT  OF  JACOBINISM 


93 


lutionary  spirit  of  rebellion  against  government  qua  gov- 
ernment, when  the  idea  was  inconceivable  to  the  masses  of 
the  people  that  government  was  the  articulation  of  a 
united  and  free  people  attuned  to  the  constructive  ideas 
of  synthesis,  cohesion,  organization,  as  opposed  to  the 
destructive  idea  of  atomism,  anarchy,  and  strife. 

The  sinister  hatred  of  the  Jeflfersonians  for  Union  and 
National  Government  was  due  partly  at  first  to  hatred  of 
monarchy,  partly  to  provincial  habits  of  mind,  and  partly 
to  a  love  of  particularism  and  all  it  stood  for  as  expressed 
in  State  Rights.  But  this  soon  passed  to  a  party  slogan 
and  a  partisan  desire  to  discredit  Washington  and  Ham- 
ilton. While  Jefferson  was  pleading  for  a  "little  rebellion 
now  and  then"  to  clear  the  atmosphere,  and  Shays's 
Rebellion  and  the  Whisky  Insurrection  were  weather 
vanes  of  the  prevailing  spirit,  Washington  was  complain- 
ing of  the  "combustibles  in  every  state  which  a  spark 
might  set  fire  to."  He  spoke  of  the  disorders  of  the 
rampant  individualism  of  the  States,  and  cried,  "Good 
God,  who,  besides  a  Tory,  could  have  foreseen,  or  a 
Briton  predicted,  them."  During  these  days  Washington 
wrote  that  "Even  respectable  characters"  were  talking 
without  horror  of  monarchy,  and  Hamilton  was  writing 
for  a  "Strong  Coercive  Union." 

Now,  then,  the  Democrats  (I  mean,  of  course,  their 
predecessors,  the  Jeffersonian  Republicans)  believed  in 
nothing  coercive,  much  less  a  Union,  especially  a  strong 
one.  Coercion,  even  self-coercion,  was  pernicious  and 
hateful  to  the  individualist  who  believed  in  the  individual 
doing  as  he  pleased.  It  was,  therefore,  tyrannical.  And 
tyranny  of  course  was  monarchy.    From  this  point  they 


i'ti 


94 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


attacked  Washington  and  Hamilton,  and  rung  all  the 
changes  in  "associating  the  quality  of  strength  in  Gov- 
ernment with  the  idea  of  a  despot,"  which  was  synony- 
mous with  coercion.  This  motif,  with  all  its  variations, 
has  been  harped  on  until  this  day.  Neither  Jefferson  nor 
his  followers  believed  treason  of  Washington  or  Hamil- 
ton, nor  is  it  credible  to-day  that  his  successors  believe 
what  they  say  of  modern  nationalism. 

If  the  presence  of  a  common  peril  in  the  War  of  the 
Revolution  had  been  scarcely  able  to  preserve  the 
semblance  of  Union,  and  if  Civil  War  so  nearly  prevailed 
at  the  time  of  the  war  with  Britain,  how  little  cohesive 
force  would  remain  when  that  pressure  was  removed? 
As  Hamilton  predicted,  so  it  happened.  Little  minds  pre- 
ternaturally  swollen  with  the  all-prevailing  phrases  of 
"Natural  rights"  unanchored  to  corresponding  duties, 
hardened  their  hearts  to  the  prophetic  voices  of  Wash- 
ington and  Hamihon  and  Jay. 

Eacii  chesty  individual  unit  enlisted  in  the  common 
cause— about  the  only  common  cause — of  the  deification 
of  selfishness  and  the  apotheosis  of  mediocrity.  This 
spirit  of  individualism  was  manifested  in  the  states  which 
established  thirteen  tariffs  and  came  nearly  organizing 
thirteen  standing  armies.  Two  states  arose  in  rebellion 
and  war  seemed  inevitable  between  Vermont,  New 
Hampshire,  and  New  York,  between  Pennsylvania  and 
Connecticut.  Petty  interests,  without  national  spirit 
and  patriotism,  led  to  strife,  and  strife  led  to  hatred  and 
the  desire  for  a  common  defense  until  it  soon  became 
clear  to  every  man  of  vision  that  the  Confederation  was 
fit  for  the  purposes  of  neither  war  nor  peace. 


SPIRIT  OF  JACOBINISM  95 

When  the  war  was  over,  it  was  only  a  farsighted  few 
who  saw  that  tlie  real  crisis  had  begun.  The  Confedera- 
tion had  been  nothing  but  a  "league  of  friendship"  for  a 
common  defense,  superseding  the  Continental  Congress 
under  which  the  war  had  been  prosecuted,  and  its  ineffi- 
ciency during  the  last  two  years  and  six  months  of  the 
war,  and  the  years  following  till  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution,  gave  Washington  some  provocation  to  say 
with  pardonable  bitterness  that  "Influence  is  not  Govern- 
ment." And  no  one  kne\v  better  than  he  what  he  had 
put  on  record  of  the  miseiable  makeshift  of  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  Confederation,  that  the  war  would  have 
ended  sooner,  and  would  have  cost  less  in  blood  and 
money,  had  the  Government  possessed  merely  the  power 
of  taxation. 

To  those  who  look  back  from  this  vantage  ground  ot 
experience,  it  seems  nothing  less  than  monstrous  that 
the  issues  of  war  and  peace  should  have  had  no  other 
sanction  than  the  sentiments  of  honor  of  men  who  pro- 
ceeded at  once  to  the  selfish  repudiation  of  a  national 
debt  by  ingrates,  whose  behavior  can  never  be  erased 
from  the  page  of  our  history,  but  which  has  been  partly 
redeemed  by  Washington,  without  whose  single  and  in- 
comparable character  the  war  could  not  have  been  won; 
and  by  Hamilton,  without  whose  daring  campaign  for 
the  national  honor,  for  an  adequate  central  and  national 
Government,  the  American  Union  would  never  have  been 
achieved. 

When  the  Father  of  his  Country  first  took  the  oath  of 
office  as  President  of  the  new  nation,  with  a  standing 
army  of  80  men,  without  a  shilling  in  the  treasury,  with 


96 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


scarcely  a  rag  of  central  government  to  cover  the  nation's 
nakedness,  with  the  patriotic  army,  whose  bloody  feet 
had  stained  the  snows  of  Valley  Forge,  clamoring  for 
the  paltry  stipend  a  nation  of  ingrates  was  ready  to 
repudiate;  when  the  Jeflfersonian  individualists  were 
marshaling  all  the  hosts  of  confusion  and  lawlessness 
and  revolt,  this  superb  character,  who  had  led  his  country- 
men through  Revolution  and  Confederation,  with  Ham- 
ilton at  his  side,  fought  another  war  and  won  it.  He 
carried  his  country  through  a  third  crisis,  preserved  his 
government  from  disintegration  and  his  nation  from 
dissolution  a  third  time. 

There  is  something  awe-inspiring  in  the  ponderous 
inertia  of  this  immobile  figure,  to  whose  unchanging 
and  impregnable  character  a  nation  was  anchored 
through  three  storms. 

It  is  perhaps  too  early  to  judge  the  living,  but  of  the 
immortal  names  which  have  passed  into  our  history, 
save  Lincoln,  there  are  three  who  have  been  indispen- 
sable lo  the  nation,  without  any  one  of  whom  this 
nation  would  have  been  something  different,  perhaps 
no  nation  at  all — perhaps  now  the  discordant  factions 
of  helpless  chance  and  prey  to  the  organized  races  of 
mankind. 

Washington — Hamilton — Marshall — these  three.  No 
other  among  the  dead  or  living  will  measure  with  them. 
Why?  Because  their  lives  were  immortal  protests 
against  the  individualism  and  anarchy  of  revolution; 
because  they  were  architects  and  builders  of  a  national 
self-government. 

Washington   and   Hamilton,    for   nearly   a   quarter 


SPIRIT  OF  JACOBINISM  9^ 

century,  working  side  by  aide,  and  seeing  eye  to  eye— 
our  American  Jove  and  Mercury  his  winged  messenger 
—wrought  what  even  Jefferson,  State  Rights,  repudia- 
tion, secession,  nullification  and  all  the  brood  of  indi- 
vidualism have  failed  to  undo. 


>^1 


hli 


Ml 


BOOK  II 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  COMMON 

GOOD 


9» 


CHAPTER  I 


POLITICS  AND  ETHICS 

We  shall  never  get  to  the  bottom  of  this  question  of 
American  Politics  without  a  more  careful  examination 
of  its  ethical  aspects  than  any  of  us  have  seemed  to  be 
willing  hitherto  to  give  to  it.  American  Politics  is  founded 
on  interests,  not  principles.  In  municipal,  state,  or 
national  concerns  the  most  superficial  observer  will  not 
fail  to  see  that  the  prevailing  motive  is  not  the  public 
good,  but  individual  self-interest.  There  is  an  indescrib- 
able pathos  in  the  spectacle  of  a  whole  people  which 
might  be  a  great  people,  working  from  such  despicable 
motives  as  each  one  for  his  own  self-aggrandizement. 
This  is  not  so  much  the  fault  of  the  American  people 
themselves  as  of  their  philosophy  of  life.  Because  the 
American  Government  was  in  a  way  the  first  fruit  of 
the  revolutionary  ideas  of  the  eighteenth  century,  in 
ethics,  politics,  and  political  economy,  to  say  nothing  of 
religion,  everything  everywhere  became  simply  the  ex- 
pression of  the  creed  of  revolution  and  revolt.  The  pre- 
vailing creed  of  individualism  swept  away  the  founda- 
tions of  ethics  in  the  destruction  of  an  altruistic  motive, 
although,  of  course,  it  is  unnecessary  to  say  it  was  not 
blotted  out  from  human  life.  But  it  offered  an  ethics,  so 
called,  whose  only  motive  is  self-interest.  The  ultimate 
appeal  of  our  morality  was  to  selfishness.  Even  tlie 
utilitarians,  who  offered  more  or  less  of  a  humanitarian 
creed,  placed  it  on  selfish  foundations,  and  no  matter 


yii 


t:. 


t02 


THE  NKW  POLITICS 


what  good  may  have  come  from  it,  that  good  has  been 
incidental,  for  Locke  and  Hobbes,  Adam  Smith  and 
Thomas  Jefferson,  Rousseau  and  Bentham,  Godwin  and 
James  Mill  and  their  kind  have  saddled  a  curse  upon 
future  generations  in  framing  a  philosophy  which  justi- 
fies a  man's  selfishness  to  himself — m  translating 
Machiavellianism  into  modern  life. 

There  is  a  growing  conviction  among  an  increasing 
number  of  men  that  our  politics  must  be  a  part  of  our 
ethics.  They  protest  "against  tlie  breaking  up  into  frac- 
tions of  human  unity  and  demand  its  restitution."  We 
can  no  longer  tolerate  theories  wliich  separate  ethics 
from  politics. 

Twentieth  century  politics  must  involve  a  considera- 
tion of  the  spiritual  element  in  man.  and  in  this  the 
materialisms  of  both  individualism  and  socialism  fall 
short.  The  fact  is  that  humanity  l)egins  in  association, 
is  inconceivable  without  association,  and  association  is 
founded  in  spirit.  Juxtaposition  is  not  all  there  is  to  it. 
That  men  are  social,  and  not  merely  gregarious,  makes 
a  state  possible.  They  are  social  witliin  a  large  area, 
wliich  we  may  call  tlie  common  good,  and  this  is  a 
rational  whole  toward  which  eacli  human  atom  bends  his 
will,  submits  to,  obeys,  as  it  were,  adopts,  and  finds  vol- 
untary satisfaction  in  ;  and  this  is  the  basis  of  that  which 
distinguishes  civilized  and  savage  man. 

"My  dominion  ends."  said  Napoleon,  "where  the 
dominion  of  conscience  begins."  There  is  an  ominous  sug- 
gestion in  the  awful  ambiguity  of  this  phrase.  That  a 
line  can  be  drawn  just  here — where  politics  ends  and 
wliere  conscience  begins — is  sufficiently  suggestive.   That 


POLITICS  AND  KTHICS  103 

it  has  been  drawn  in  the  separation  of  ethics  from  poli- 
tics is  one  of  the  most  overwhelming  calamities  which 
have  overtaken  humanity. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  but  one  of  the  greatest  forces 
for  good  in  the  whole  revolutionarj-  period  was  that 
strange  reformer  whose  ethical  creed  and  moral  purpose 
were  at  such  cross  purposes  with  each  other  through  a 
long  and  useful  life.  The  opening  words  of  Jeremy 
Bentham's  Principles  of  Legislation  are:  "The  public 
good  ought  to  be  the  object  of  the  legislator;  general 
utility  ought  to  be  the  foundation  of  his  reasoning." 
Again  he  says:  "Nature  has  placed  man  under  the  em- 
pire of  pleasure  and  pain.  We  owe  to  them  all  our  ideas ; 
we  refer  to  them  all  our  judgments,  and  all  the  deter- 
minations of  our  life  .  .  .  the  principle  of  utility  sub- 
jects everything  to  these  two  motives.  ...  It  expresses 
tlie  property  or  tendency  of  a  thing  to  prevent  some 
evil  or  to  procure  some  good.  Evil  is  pain,  or  the  cause 
of  pain.  Good  is  pleasure,  or  the  cause  of  pleasure.  .  .  . 
He  who  adopts  the  principle  of  utility  esteems  virtue  to 
be  good  only  on  account  of  the  pleasures  which  result 
from  it.  He  regards  vice  as  an  evil  only  because  of  the 
pains  which  it  produces.  Moral  good  is  good  only  by 
its  tendency  to  produce  physical  good.  Moral  evil  is 
evil  only  by  its  tendency  to  produce  physical  evil." 

Benthani  does  compromise  with  an  anti-materialism 
by  stating  further  that  when  he  says  physical  he 
means  the  pains  and  pleasures  of  the  soul  (which  I 
believe  he  practically  denies)  as  well  as  the  pains  and 
pleasures  of  the  senses.  He  states  further  that  all  the 
virtues  or  their  opposites,  whatever  we  might  call  them, 


104 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


are  to  be  classified  under  the  category  of  pleasure  or 
pain,  and  that  pleasure  or  pain  is  what  everybody  feels 
to  be  such,  peasant  or  prince,  without  consulting  Plato 
or  Aristotle.  In  chapter  five  he  says  also,  "It  is  true  that 
Epicurus  alone  of  all  the  ancients  had  the  merit  of  hav- 
ing known  the  true  source  of  morals." 

Here  in  these  bald,  I  might  say  stark-naked  state- 
ments are  the  foundations  of  the  ethics  of  political 
individualism.  They  are  perfectly  fair  samples  of  the 
aphorisms  of  the  day  which  outlined  a  pretty  conserva- 
tive individualism  (because  Bentham  was  among  the 
Conservatives),  as  is  seen  by  the  keynote  struck  in  his 
first  sentence  in  the  Principles  of  Legislation — "The 
public  good  ought  to  be  the  object  of  the  Legislator." 
Most  of  the  individualists  of  that  day  denied  pointblank 
that  the  end  of  the  legislator  was  anything  more  than 
the  protection  of  life  and  property  from  violence,  and 
that  to  advance  the  public  good  was  to  violate  the 
sacred  principle  of  individual  freedom. 

The  reason  the  early  individualists  separated  ethics 
from  politics  was  because  they  destroyed  ethics,  by 
sweeping  away  the  foundations  of  ethics,  and,  as  in  the 
case  of  Bentham  himself,  though  mostly  to  a  lesser  de- 
gree, they  would  have  destroyed  politics  in  any  sense 
except  that  of  political  opportunism  had  it  not  been  for 
the  ingrained  and  hereditary  instincts  and  qualities  over 
and  above  and  better  than  their  adopted  creed  in  the  Brit- 
ish stock.  Bentham  was  an  example  of  the  man  who  is 
better  than  his  creed.  John  Stuart  Mill,  "the  saint  of 
rationalism,"  is  a  better  example  still. 

But  the  fact  remains  that  individualism  was  a  dis- 


POLITICS  AND  ETHICS 


105 


integrating  force,  and  left  to  itself  was  the  negation  of 
ethics  and  the  destruction  of  the  state  with  the  exception 
of  the  policeman's  office,  which  was  only  a  compromise 
on  the  basis  of  its  being  a  necessary  evil.  Mr.  Leslie 
Stephen  states  this  case  pretty  clearly  (English  Utili- 
tarians, p.  131):  "A  main  characteristic  of  the  whole 
social  and  political  order,  about  18 10,  is  what  is  now 
called  'individualism'  ...  or  the  gospel  according  to 
Adam  Smith,  laissez  faire  and  so  forth.  .  .  .  English- 
men took  liberty  mainly  in  the  sense  of  restricting  law. 
Government  in  general  was  a  nuisance  though  a  neces- 
sity; and  properly  employed  only  in  mediating  between 
conflicting  interests  and  restraining  the  violence  of  in- 
dividuals forced  into  contact  by  outward  circumstances. 
.  .  .  The  people  would  use  their  authority  to  tie  the 
hands  of  the  rulers  and  limit  them  strictly  to  their  proper 
and  narrow  functions.  The  absence  again  of  the  idea 
of  a  state  in  any  other  sense  implies  another  tendency. 
The  'idea'  was  not  required.  Englishmen  were  con- 
cerned rather  with  details  than  with  first  principles"  (p. 

133)- 

Mr.  Stephen  speaks  further,  with  some  refined  scorn, 
of  the  French  who  had  their  political  theories  all  worked 
out,  but  which  fell  flat  on  the  English  mind. 

Both  were  wrong.  The  English  despised  political  phi- 
losophy because  this  involved  ethics  and  ethics  annihi- 
lated the  laissez  faire  regime,  and  the  laissec  faire  regime 
was  necessary  for  the  rich  that  they  might  become  richer. 
The  French,  apparently  oblivious  to  the  testimonies  of 
history  and  the  fundamental  assumptions  of  scientific 
criticism  and  the  inductive  reasoning  generally,  seemed 


i  fi  1 


II 


(■■  •-- 


i  .-"1 


io6 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


to  spin  their  theories  Uke  spiders'  webs  from  their  own 
mouths. 

Dr.  Pringle-Pattison  suins  up  Benthamism  in  the  fol- 
lowing words:  "The  abstract  sitnplicity  of  the  perfect 
state  corresponds  to  the  abstract  simplicity  of  the  philo- 
sophical principles  from  which  it  was  deduced.  Un- 
adulterated selfislmess  is  the  motive,  universal  benevo- 
lence is  the  end — these  are  the  two  fixed  poles  of 
Bentham's  thought." 

There  is  no  possible  way  of  harmonizing  principles 
so  diametrically  opposing  each  other,  except  in  the  per- 
sonal character  of  Bentham  himself.  Unfortunately 
there  is  a  very  small  minority  of  the  human  race  who 
can  seek  universal  benevolence  as  the  end  of  their  lives 
with  unadulterated  selfishness  as  the  motive  of  their 
endeavors.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  vast  good  has 
resulted  to  the  human  race  through  the  efforts  of  the 
school  which  Bentham  founded,  notwithstanding  the 
ethical  atomism  on  which  it  was  based.  It  was  not 
necessary  to  reconcile  benevolence  to  selfishness  in  their 
theoretical  bearings  when,  in  the  personal  character  of 
Bentham  and  the  two  Mills  and  their  following,  it  was 
quite  certain  that  their  chief  end  and  aim  were  benevo- 
lent, but  where  it  is  not  certain  that  their  motive  was 
selfishness.  Perhaps  after  all  too  much  credit  lias  been 
given  to  Bentham  and  his  school  for  the  humani- 
tarian awakening  of  the  first  part  of  the  nineteenth 
centur>',  and  too  little  to  men  like  Southey,  Wordsworth, 
and  Coleridge,  and  especially  Wesley,  who  perhaps  had 
more  to  do  with  the  awakening  of  the  individual  in 
bringing  it  to  a  consciousness  of  itself  than  any  one  force 


4  ' 

Si 

iti 


POLITICS  AND  ETHICS 


107 


in  the  British  nation  in  his  century.  After  all,  eighteenth 
century  thought  involved  more  than  anything  else  the 
principle  of  analysis,  and  this  was  both  cause  and  effect 
of  individualism.  The  individualists,  and  even  the  utili- 
tarians for  the  most  part,  did  not,  because  they  consist- 
ently could  not  support  the  great  measures  for  the 
public  good,  and  in  this  they  followed  their  ethical 
motives  of  unadulterated  selfishness  rather  than  the  end 
of  universal  benevolence.  "Some  of  the  utilitarians, 
it  is  true,"  says  Dr.  Pringle-Pattison  (Quarterly  Review, 
July,  1901),  "were  better  than  their  creed  and  supported 
the  factory  legislation,  but  the  school  was  opposed  to 
it  on  principle.  The  utilitarians  were  in  fact  .  .  .  the 
chief  elaborators  of  the  classical  political  economy  and 
they  accepted  its  doctrines,  not  as  abstractions  and  laws 
of  tendency,  provisionally  true  in  given  circumstances, 
but  as  an  absolute  theory  of  society." 

One  is  duly  astonished,  therefore,  when  he  sees  so 
able  a  scholar  and  so  careful  a  historian  as  Professor 
Dicey  claiming  for  individualism  the  results  of  the  legis- 
lative reforms  of  England  in  the  nineteenth  century. 
Had  he  made  this  claim  for  utilitarianism  he  might  at 
least  have  found  sufficient  footing  to  justify  an  attempt 
at  an  argument.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  individualism  itself 
was  sterile.  It  was  negative,  critical,  destructive.  It 
was  not,  and  could  not  have  been,  and  can  never  be,  con- 
structive, to  say  nothing  of  architectonic. 

Mr.  Dicey  says,  in  Law  and  Opinion  in  England 
(Harvard  Lectures)  :  "During  the  long  conflicts  which 
have  made  up  the  constitutional  history  of  England 
individualism  has  meant  hatred  nf  the  arbitrary  pre- 


!  .■.•»1 


i  ! 

f  .i 


io8 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


rogative  of  the  crown;  or  in  other  words  of  the  collec- 
tive and  autocratic  authority  of  the  state.  .  .  .  The 
strength  of  Benthamism  lay  then  ...  in  its  being  a 
response  to  the  needs  of  a  particular  era." 

The  fact  is,  that  Bentham  was  true  to  an  ethical  pur- 
pose and  was  not  consistent  with  the  unethical  motive 
lie  solemnly  announced.  He  was  bitterly  opposed  to 
anything  like  pure  individuahsm ;  so  much  so  that 
of  all  his  generation  he  was  one  of  the  most  caustic 
critics  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  Dec- 
laration of  Rights.  The  first  of  these  he  called  a  "hodge- 
podge of  confusion  and  absurdity."  Of  the  second  he 
writes,  "What  lias  been  the  object  of  the  Declaration  of 
pretended  Rights?  To  add  as  much  force  as  possible 
to  those  passions  already  too  strong,  to  burst  the  cords 
that  hold  them  in  .  .  .  to  say  to  the  selfish  passions — 
there  everywliere  is  your  prey !  To  the  angry  passions — 
there  everywhere  is  your  enemy !" 

The  philosophical  radicals  of  the  nineteenth  century 
were  for  tlie  most  part  very  able  and  very  earnest  men ; 
men  of  the  highest  moral  characters,  and  in  their  charac- 
ters perhaps  the  flower  of  tlieir  age,  notwithstanding 
their  professions  of  "unadulterated  selfishness."  They 
were  individualists  so  far  as  individualism  served  their 
purpose.  As  Professor  Dicey  says,  their  creeds  served  "a 
particular  era."  "It  was,  indeed,  needed  for  a  period," 
and  was  used  "for  a  period"  in  its  "hatred  of  the  arbi- 
trary prerogative  of  the  crown."  or  "the  collective  and 
autocratic  authority  of  the  state."  Utilitarianism  found 
that  it  had  no  raison  d'etre  as  an  exponent  of  mere  in- 
dividualism, and  in  order  to  secure  the  vitality  which 


POLITICS  AND  ETHICS 


109 


could  allow  it  to  exist  at  all,  and  do  an  ethical  work,  it 
took  on  a  social  and  altruistic  form.  About  all  of  con- 
structive ethical  value  utilitarianism  has  bequeathed  to 
history  has  been  that  in  which  it  has  exceeded  the  motive 
of  individualism  and  its  outlook.  It  is  a  matter  of  com- 
ment that  the  learned  Professor  should  have  overlooked 
these  facts;  that  the  individualistic  protest  against  auto- 
cratic and  irresponsible  monarchy  having  gained  its  point, 
which  was  a  purely  negative  one,  must  take  up  a  posi- 
tive and  constructive  and  social  issue  in  direct  departure 
from  the  principle  of  individualism,  or  go  out  of  busi- 
ness. It  added  to  the  creed  of  individual  happiness  an 
article  on  national  well-being;  in  other  words,  the  public 
good.  For  has  not  Bentham  surrendered  the  whole  of 
the  position  of  individualism  in  this  very  criticism  of 
the  Declaration  of  Rights :  "The  things  that  people  stand 
most  in  need  of  are,  one  would  think,  their  duties;  for 
their  rights,  whatever  they  may  be,  are  apt  enough  to 
take  care  of  themselves  .  .  .  the  great  enemies  of  the 
public  peace  are  the  selfish  and  dissocial  passions." 

Professor  Dicey  was  not  unaware  of  this  arraignment 
of  the  principles  of  individualism,  for  I  have  quoted  it 
from  his  Harvard  Lectures. 

It  is  a  most  interesting  study  to  follow  out  Professor 
Dicey's  confusion,  in  his  development  of  the  four  objects 
at  which  Benthamism  was  aimed;  the  transference  of 
political  power  into  hands  friendly  to  the  greatest  good 
of  the  greatest  number ;  the  promotion  of  humanitarian- 
ism  ;  the  extension  of  individual  liberty ;  the  creation  of 
an  adequate  legal  machinery  for  the  protection  of  the 
equal  rights  of  all  citizens. 


u 


f'^ 


m 


no 


T!1K  NKW  rOMTICS 


'llic  Keforni  act  gave  predominant  autliority  to  the 
middle  clas^scs  of  Knj^laiid.  llie  .Municipal  Kcfurm  Act 
of  1X36  j;ave  \o  llie  inhabitants  of  l)orou{,'h.s  the  govern- 
ment and  management  of  the  cities  in  which  tiiey  lived, 
doing  nothing  for  country  laborers.  The  new  Poor 
Law,  in  placing  \)nor  relief  imder  the  sujjervision  of  the 
state,  inaugurated  a  precedent  in  socialistic  legislation 
which  had  n(<t  only  not  been  exceeded  but  not  even  re- 
peated in  the  lusiory  of  American  or  Knglish  law. 

The  mitigation  of  the  criminal  law  of  ICngland :  the 
abolition  of  the  pillory,  of  tlie  whipi)ing  of  women,  of 
hanging  in  chains,  the  inauguration  of  prison  reform 
and  reduction  of  capital  jnuiishment,  the  adfiptiiMi 
of  laws  regulating  child  labor,  protecting  lunatics 
and  preventing  sane  inen  from  imprisonment  in  mad 
houses :  laws  for  the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  animals, 
the  emancipation  of  negroes;  not  one  of  these  laws 
can  be  said  to  have  been  enacted  from  an  individualistic 
but  i)lainly  all  are  from  altruistic  motives,  and  all  are 
departures  from  the  principles  of  the  political  theories 
of  individualism  which  inveighs  against  all  legislation 
and  says  in  the  language  of  Lord  Brougham,  "Why 
can't  you  let  us  alone?" 

So  with  legislation  for  individual  freedom.  It  was 
altruistic.  It  was  not  individualistic  even  here  on  its 
own  ground.  Most  curiously  and  naively  Professor 
Dicey  states  the  case:  "By  the  legislation  of  1824  Ben- 
thamites and  Economists — that  is,  enlightened  individ- 
ualists— had  extended  the  right  of  combination  in  order 
to  enlarge  the  area  of  individual  freedom";  in  which  the 
whole  anniment  for  individualism  is  given  away;  and  in 


POLITICS  AND  ETHICS 


III 


whidi  is  stated  tlic  fumlanicntal  principle  of  society,  for 
real  liberty  is  not  fouiul  in  the  extension  oi  the  principles 
of  irresjionsihle  individual  freedom,  but  through  rational 
forms  of  association.  And  this  is  flat  denial  of  indi- 
vidualism. 

I  am  the  last  one  to  discount  tlie  tremendous  value  of 
the  Iknthaniite  passion  to  protect  individual  freedom, 
but  I  am  one  of  the  first  to  protest  that  its  wonderful 
progress  in  the  nineteenth  century  and  the  splendid 
partial  success  it  achieved  is  due  to  its  departure  from 
the  spirit  and  methods  of  individualism;  for  they  were 
obliged,  as  all  rational  legislators  are  obliged,  "to  extend 
the  right  of  combination" — or  the  principle  of  associa- 
tion— "in  order  to  enlarge  the  area  of  individual  free- 
dom." 

In  admitting  the  value  of  the  fourf  inciple  of 
Benthamism,  the  creation  of  legal  machinei.  or  promot- 
ing the  common  good,  Professor  Dicey  again  surrenders 
the  ground-work  of  individualism. 

"What  man  out  of  Bedlam,"  says  Professor  Dicey, 
"ever  dreamed  that  a  country  was  happier  for  the  constant 
recurrence  of  pestilence,  famine,  and  war;  but  who, 
then,  can  deny  that  laws  which  promote  the  cultivation 
of  tlie  soil,  insure  the  public  health,  keep  the  country 
at  peace  and  avert  invasions  are,  as  far  as  they  go,  good 
laws  ?" 

Professor  Dicey  says.  "The  age  of  individualism  was 
emphatically  the  era  of  humanitarianism." 

To  say  that  "the  age  of  individuahsm"  and  the  "era 
of  humanitarianism"  were  merely  coincident  would  be 
an  accurate  statement.    But  to  argue  post  hoc  ergo  proc- 


If 


iia 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


tcr  hoc  is  unseemly  of  so  able  a  scholar,  lawyer,  and 
historian.  The  factory  legislation  which  followed  the 
agitation  started  by  Oastler's  "Slavery  in  Yorkshire"  in 
one  of  the  most  frightful  arraignments  of  individualism 
ever  written  until  the  blue  books  took  up  the  subject, 
was  a  half  century  protest  against  the  hell  individual- 
ism had  made.  The  learned  Professor  speaks  correctly 
when  he  says  that  "individualists  of  every  school  were 
only  too  keenly  alive  to  the  danger  that  the  sinister 
interest  of  a  class  should  work  evil  to  the  weak  and  help- 
less." But  he  is  not  accurate  when  he  says  that  there 
was  'nothing  in  the  early  factory  movement  which  was 
opposed  to  Benthamism  or  to  the  doctrine  of  the  most 
rigid  iK)litica1  economy."  Here  Professor  Dicey  is  the 
advocate  framing  an  apologia  for  individualism.  No 
one  knows  better  than  he  that  the  orthodox  political 
economy  of  the  time  was  individualistic — and  that  so 
far  as  it  was  individualistic,  its  policy  was  laissez  faire 
free  competition  between  economic  men — a  free-for-all 
race  against  the  field.  This,  of  course,  is  not  to  say  but 
most  individualists  even  in  those  dreadful  days  exceeded 
individualism,  and  were  better  than  their  creed. 

But  it  is  to  say  most  emphatically  that  the  wrath  of 
an  angered  people  which  arose  in  England  and  placed 
the  gyves  of  altruistic  enactment  on  the  wrists  of  the 
child-murderers  of  Manchester  was  a  wrath  of  altruism 
— of  the  fear  of  God  and  the  love  of  man — which  cursed 
the  reckless  and  irresponsible  greed  of  individualism  and 
said  that  the  time  had  come  to  "grind  the  ravening  tooth" 
of  laisses  faire. 

Many  "individualists"  at  this  time  denounced  the  out- 


POLITICS  .-^.ND  ETHICS 


113 


rages  against  the  "little  white  slaves."  It  was  Macaulay, 
the  individualist,  who  wrote:  "Moloch  is  a  more  merciful 
friend  than  Mammon.  Death  in  tiie  arms  of  the  Cartha- 
ginian idol  was  mercy  to  the  slow  waste  of  life  in  the 
factories." 

Again  the  early  individualists  as  they  opened  their 
hearts  toward  humanitarianisni  found  there  were  certain 
persons  after  all  whose  interests  needed  safeguarding; 
i.  e.,  who  in  the  strictest  sense  were  unable  to  protect  them- 
selves and  needed  the  special  aid  or  protection  of  the  state, 
and  they  found  it  necessary  to  any  rational  theory  of 
civilization  to  restrict  freedom  of  contract.  Such  legisla- 
tion as  protects  women  and  children  and  even  tenant  farm- 
ers; tt„  'cfends  society  against  poison  foods  and  medi- 
cines; ^3  will  not  allow  a  man  under  necessity  or  pres- 
sure to  bargain  away  his  rights,  could  not,  altliough  the 
custom  of  Benthamite  reform  agitation,  be  called  indi- 
vidualistic legislation.  Mr.  Dicey  says,  "The  most 
thoroughgoing  Benthamites  strenuously  insist  upon 
the  principle  that  for  certain  purposes  all  persons  need 
state  protection;  e.  g.,  for  the  prevention  of  assault  done 
to  them  by  the  breaker  of  a  contract  or  by  a  wrong- 
doer." This  is  a  summary  of  the  aims  of  individualistic 
jurisprudence.  Real  consistent  individualists  like  God- 
win insisted  that  "all  law  is  an  institution  of  the  most 
pernicious  tendency."  They  had  retreated  so  far  into 
the  bat-inhabited  caverns  of  anarchy  that  a  modified 
individualist  like  Leslie  Stephen  speaks  of  Godwin's 
conception  of  mankind  as  a  "vast  number  of  incarnate 
syllogisms." 

Professor  Dicey,  in  apologizing  for  the  existence  of 


114  TilH  NliW  POLITICS 

any  law  at  all,  says,  "But  such  protection,  or  state  aid, 
as  understood  by  consistent  individualists,  is  in  reality 
notliing  but  the  defense  of  individual  liberty  and  is  there- 
fore not  an  exception  to  but  an  application  of  the  indi- 
vidualistic creed." 

I  wonder  if  Professor  Dicey,  who  has  admitted  that 
the  principle  of  association  enlarges  the  area  of  indi- 
vidual freedom,  will  deny  in  the  interests  of  individual 
liberty  the  wisdom  of  the  extension  of  the  principle  of 
association  and  the  "utility"  of  such  legislation  as  ex- 
tends it.  Moreover,  another  question  would  be  perti- 
nent here.  Is  individual  liberty  the  sum  total  of  human 
good?  Are  there  no  other,  no  higher  aims  for  human 
endeavor?  Must  jurisprudence  and  politics  stand  or 
fall  as  they  are  measured  by  this  nonn  ?  Is  it  individual 
liberty  for  each  man  to  do  as  he  pleases?  Does  human 
perfection  lie  toward  the  "greatest  happiness"  of  Ben- 
tham  or  the  "greatest  nobleness"  of  Carlyle? 

Toward  pure  individual  liberty  lies  license.  Toward 
constitutional  liberty  lies  discipline. 

Under  the  old  regime  the  individual  awakened.  But 
he  awakened  only  to  individuality— not  through  indi- 
vidualism, but  through  the  discovery  that  the  individual 
is  developed  and  perfected  only  in  and  through  rational 
association. 

If  the  strong  ethical  bias  of  tlie  characters  of  such 
men  as  Bentham,  Adam  Smith,  and  Thomas  Jefferson, 
and  indeed  most  all  the  better  sort  of  the  leaders  of  the 
revoUnionar>-  movement  who  spent  their  lives  in  really 
trying  to  work  out  the  betterment  of  mankind,  started 
a  real  liberating  and  rejuvenating  movement  during  the 


POLITICS  AND  ETHICS 


115 


revolutionary  age,  it  also  may  be  true  that  the  utili- 
tarian propaganda  based  on  an  egoistic  philosophy  will 
result  eventually  in  more  harm  to  the  human  race  than 
it  ever  has  done  good.  There  has  been  no  single  year 
out  of  these  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  years  since 
Jefferson  and  Smith  and  Bentham  burst  upon  the  world 
which  has  been  without  its  witness  to  the  fact  that  there 
is  something  fundamental  in  human  nature  which  prompts 
its  best  productions  to  do  noble  acts  without  value 
received  and  to  perform  heroic  deeds  without  counting 
the  cost.  The  profound  and  far-reaching  harm  which 
the  philosophy  of  these  men  has  done  and  is  doing  and 
will  continue  to  do  is  in  offering  a  political  and  economic 
philosophy  founded  on  an  ethics  that  justifies  a  man's 
selfishness  to  himself. 


W! 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  GREEK  CONTRIBUTION  TO  POLITICS 

The  New  Politics  presents  a  theory  of  the  state  of 
wider  scope  than  the  mere  protection  of  life  and  prop- 
erty, and  for  the  rest,  the  big  eating  the  little.  It  offers 
a  theory  comprehensive  enough  to  cover  the  whole  wel- 
fare of  all  the  people.  Its  creed  is  that  progress  is 
planned  nnd  wrought,  that  it  is  no  chance  flower  in  the 
Micawberish  garden  of  hisses  fairc. 

The  relations  established  between  men  in  the  institu- 
tions of  the  state  while  not  of  the  high-water  mark, 
define  pretty  well  the  average  level  of  national  morality 
and  capacity  for  reason.  They  define  the  element  in 
common  between  the  individuals  of  the  nation,  viz., 
nationality.  The  relations  outlined  by  a  civic  com- 
munity are  not  only  the  embodiment  of  the  moral  ca- 
pacity of  the  nation,  but  are  the  absolutely  necessary 
means  or  channels  of  fulfillment  of  the  moral  life  of  the 
nation,  without  which  manhood  itself  would  be  stripped 
of  its  distinctive  function  and  attributes.  The  state  is, 
as  it  were,  the  composite  ethical  portrait  of  th°  national 
rational  character.  Idiosyncrasies  eliminated,  tliere  is 
a  large  common  area.  Here  is  the  nub  of  the  whole 
question  of  politics:  This  very  idea  of  a  common  good 
and  the  fact  of  a  common  good  involve  by  inexorable 
logical  necessity  duties  as  well  as  rights ;  and  conversely 
any  rational  theory  of  rights  and  duties  involves  (what  a 
theory  of  rights  denies  or  omits)  this  common  interest, 

ii6 


GREEK  CONTRIBUTION  TO  POLITICS    117 

this  common  aim  and  life,  this  common  good  where  lies 
the  state. 

"People  are  beginning  to  recognize,"  ys  Michel 
Chevalier  (quoted  by  Paul  Leroy-Beaulieu,  Modem 
State,  p,  17),  that  the  function  of  the  state  "is  to  guide 
society  toward  good  and  preserve  it  from  evil,  to  be 
the  active  and  intelligent  promoter  of  public  improve- 
ment." The  same  principle  is  recognized  by  Professor 
Wagner  of  Berlin  when  he  places  alongside  the  mission 
of  justice  another  great  function  of  state,  the  mis- 
sion ot  civilization  (Culturcu'cck  des  Stoats).  Says 
Shebbare  (The  Greek  Theory  of  the  State),  "The  two 
great  rival  theories  of  the  functions  of  the  state  are — 
the  theory  which  was  for  so  many  years  dominant  in 
England,  and  which  may  for  convenience  be  called  the 
individualist  theory,  and  the  theory  which  is  stated  most 
fully  and  powerfully  by  the  Greek  philosophers  which 
we  may  call  the  socialist  theoiy.  The  individualist 
theory  regards  the  state  as  a  purely  utilitarian  institu- 
tion, a  mere  means  to  an  end  .  .  .  for  the  protection 
of  property  and  personal  liberty,  and  as  having  therefore 
no  concern  with  the  private  life  and  character  of  the 
citizen,  except  in  so  far  as  those  may  make  him  dan- 
gerous to  the  material  welfare  of  his  neighbor. 

"The  Greek  theory,  on  the  other  hand,  though  it  like- 
wise regards  the  state  as  a  means  to  certain  ends,  regards 
it  as  something  more.  .  .  .  According  to  this  theory 
no  department  of  life  is  outside  the  scope  of  politics, 
and  a  healthy  state  is  at  once  the  end  at  which  the 
science  aims,  and  the  engine  by  which  its  decrees  are 
carried  out." 


ii8 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


The  use  of  the  term  "socialist  theory"  is  very  mis- 
leading, because  that  vast  body  of  social  and  ethical 
doctrine  which  is  pretty  well  known  among  scholars  as 
the  Greek  theory  of  the  state  cannot  in  any  sense  be 
identified  with  the  orthodox  socialism  of  the  present  day 
whose  foundations  are  laid  in  the  economic  material- 
ism of  Karl  Marx.  The  individualist  theory  of  the 
state,  however,  on  the  American  continent  is  the  "police- 
man theory"  of  Jefferson  and  his  school.  This  and  the 
American  socialist  theory  are  both  fundamentally  dif- 
ferent from  another  theory  which  cannot  by  any  twist- 
ing be  called  by  either  name.  It  did  not  start  as  a 
political  philosophy.  It  did  not  start  as  a  the^r^  of 
state.  It  was  the  creation  of  necessity.  It  can:'e  into 
being  as  a  theory  because  it  was  a  growth  of  the  ethical 
and  political  wisdom  of  the  best  minds  of  the  early 
republic  to  protect  the  republic  from  dissolution.  It 
has  been  wrought  out  of  over  a  century  of  experience 
of  a  nation  justifying  itself  and  its  right  to  live. 

"Whoever,"  says  Guizot  (History  of  Civilization), 
"observes  with  some  degree  of  attention  the  genius  of 
the  English  nation"  (and  he  could  have  included  the 
American  nation,  for  it  is  an  Anglo-Saxon  characteristic) 
"will  be  struck  with  a  double  fact;  on  the  one  hand,  its 
steady  good  sense  and  practical  ability;  on  the  other, 
its  want  of  genera!  ideas  and  of  elevation  of  thought 
upon  theoretical  questions.  Whether  we  open  an  English 
work  on  history,  jurisprudence,  or  any  other  subject, 
w?  rarely  find  the  great  and  fundamental  reason  of 
thing:." 

It  is  no  disparagement  nf  the  power  of  finding  the 


GREEK  CONTRIBUTION  TO  POLITICS    1 19 

"great  and  fundamental  reason  of  things"  to  say  that 
on  the  whole  the  practical  and  empirical  method  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  with  his  conservative  instinct  has  had  bet- 
ter results  than  the  more  philosophical  method  of,  for 
example,  France.  For  without  a  Reign  of  Terror  con- 
servative Br'tain  has  achieved  more  liberty  under  freer 
institutions  than  have  the  French,  and  that  without  the 
guillotine  of  Robespierre,  which  made  way  for  the  sword 
of  Napoleon  the  Great,  which  in  turn  determined  the 
day  of  wrath  for  France  and  Napoleon  the  Little  at 
Sedan. 

One  of  the  curious  paradoxes  of  political  progress  is 
that  the  doctrinaires  have  not  been  the  ones  who  have 
created  rational  and  ethical  institutions.  Jacobin  doc- 
trinaires become  the  ancestors  of  anarchy.  The  sensible, 
practical,  concrete  Washington  fathers  a  nation. 

That  the  state  has  an  ethical  nature  and  a  moral  mis- 
r.ion  is  an  idea  as  foreign  to  individualism  as  that  the 
individual  is  not  the  final  reality.  Bat  the  ethical  nature 
of  the  state  first  came  within  the  point  of  view  of  the 
Greeks.  How  out  of  the  limited  area  of  political  history 
behind  them  this  gifted  people  were  able  to  pluck  torches 
to  light  all  succeeding  ages  will  never  cease  to  provoke 
the  wonder  of  mankind. 

But  even  they  did  not  know  the  values  of  their  Con- 
stitutions, for  was  not  the  Politics  of  Aristotle  unnoticed 
by  his  contemporaries,  and  was  it  not  hidden  in  a  cellar 
in  Skepsis  and  found  and  published  in  the  days  of  Sylla 
by  Appellikon  of  Teos? 

It  is  less  likely  that  the  modern  publisher  would  buy 
that   manuscript  or  could  sell  that  book  which  is   to 


120 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


move  future  ages  than  that  it  is  nailed  away  somewhere 
— an  "Attic  Philosophy" — in  a  box  labeled  "Mumm's 
Extra  Dry." 

The  politics  we  have  been  looking  forward  to  as 
worthy  the  W'estern  Hemisphere  in  future  times  must 
evolve  on  rational,  net  hit-or  miss,  lines;  and  it  must 
reckon  with  those  two  great  contributions  of  human 
spirit,  the  Greek  form  and  Christian  content. 

The  peculiar  contribution  of  the  Greeks,  without 
whicli  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  the  future  of  human 
thought  or  human  ])rogress,  is  that  this  universe  of  ours 
is  not  a  laisscc  fairc  universe,  that  the  world  has  not 
been  abandoned  to  caprice,  but  that  Reason  rules  the 
World  and  Men. 

The  late  Professor  Drummond  has  described  a  book 
he  read  in  his  childhood  called  The  Chance  World.  It 
described  a  world  in  which  everything  happened  by 
chance.  The  sun  might  rise,  or  it  might  not,  or  it  might 
appear  at  any  hour,  or  the  moon  might  come  up  instead. 
W^hen  children  were  born  they  might  have  one  or  a 
dozen  heads,  and  those  heads  might  not  be  on  their 
shoulders — there  miglit  be  no  shoulders — but  arranged 
about  their  limbs.  If  one  jumped  up  in  the  air,  it  was  im- 
possible to  predict  whether  he  would  ever  come  down 
again.  In  tliis  chance  world  cause  and  effect  were  abol- 
ished. Law  was  annihilated.  And  the  result  to  such 
a  world  could  only  be  that  Reason  would  be  impossible. 
It  would  be  a  lunatic  world  with  a  population  of  lunatics. 

Now  thi=  is  no  more  than  a  real  picture  of  what  the 
world  would  be  without  law  or  the  universe  without 
continuitv. 


GREEK  CONTRIBUTION  TO  POLITICS    121 


This  idea,  the  Greeks,  the  first  of  all  men,  discovered, 
and  the  first — would  it  be  too  much  to  say  the  last — of 
all  men,  applied  to  Politics.  It  was  impossible  for  them 
to  dissociate  this  idea  from  that  of  justice,  for  justice 
is  rational.  We  find,  therefore,  in  the  prose  and  poetic 
literature  of  the  Greeks,  the  reiterated  proclamation  that 
just  relations  must  be  maintained  between  men,  because 
just  relations  are  rational  relations.  Here  the  individ- 
ualist spirit  was  found  to  be  irrational  and  here  altruism 
first  found  rational  mtI  irrefragible  foundations. 

Greece  has  given  us  the  doctrine  that  Logos,  or  Reason, 
rules  the  world — a  doctrine  first  promulgated  to  man- 
kind by  Anaxagoras,  who  appeared,  as  Aristotle  says, 
"as  a  sober  man  among  the  drunken."  From  him  began 
the  first  great  systematic  protest  against  individualism. 
When  the  Greeks  first  oogan  to  distinguish  between 
nature  and  culture,  Barbarian  and  Greek,  they  developed 
and  explained  their  ideas  in  the  growth  of  the  mind 
from  individualism  to  the  larger  life  of  rational  ethics. 
Their  contrast  between  Greek  and  Barbarian  was  based 
on  the  distinction  between  socialized  and  individualistic 
society.  This  idea  began  to  dawn  upon  their  Jiinkers 
at  a  very  early  time,  long  before  the  age  of  Anaxagoras, 
and  has  always  been  closely  associated  with  justice  and 
altruistic  spirit.  Even  in  days  as  ea''!y  as  those  at  Chal- 
cis  and  Euboea,  when  Hesiod  is  said  to  have  striven  with 
Homer  and  won,  this  former  poet  entered  the  lists  of 
justice  and  good  faith  against  the  misuse  of  power.  It 
was  he  who  wrote  the  first  fable  of  its  kind  in  all 
European  literature  and  elucidated  the  hawk's  theory 
that  "might  makes  right."    A  hawk  was  soaring  in  the 


i 


122 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


clouds  with  a  nightingale  in  its  talons.  Transfixed 
by  the  cruel  claws,  the  suffering  songster  cried  out  in 
pain.  "Silly  creature."  said  the  hawk,  "why  dost 
thou  scream?  Thou  art  in  the  grasp  of  the  stronger. 
Thou  shalt  go  wherever  I  take  thee,  songster  as  thou 
art.  I  will  make  a  meal  of  thee,  if  I  please,  or  I  will 
let  thee  fall.  It  is  folly  to  think  of  striving  against  one's 
betters." 

Thus  early  in  the  first  dim  day's  dawn  of  the  authentic 
records  of  European  mind,  the  first  fable  in  European 
literature  pictures  the  "divine"  law  of  the  "survival  of 
the  fittest" — unrestricted  competition — laisscs  faire — 
— individualism — when  the  claw  instinct  for  a  mouthful 
qr^nched  the  voice  of  song.  Those  must  have  been 
"human"  days,  as  we  have  learned  to  connote  "lurnan," 
for  Hesiod  saw  that  around  him  which  called  for  this 
fable — as  true  to-day — and  he  uttered  a  lament  which 
a  singer  (if  we  had  one)  might  utter  to-day.  "Would 
that  I  had  died  earlier,  or  that  my  birth  had  faii.n  on 
later  days,  for  now  there  is  a  race  of  iron." 

Would  it  have  fared  him  better  to  liave  had  his  chance 
now.  nearly  three  thousand  years  later,  and  have  been 
born  to  a  race  of  steel? 

"The  evils  of  Athens  are  due  not  to  the  gods  but  men. 
The  leaders  of  the  people,  the  nobles,  are  possessed  by 
an  insatiable  love  of  riches,  and  do  not  shrink  from 
injustice  to  acquire  wealth, '  quoth  Solon,  a  statesman 
whose  poetr.  was  but  a  commentary  on  his  own  emanci- 
pating career.  "I  have  framed  laws,"  he  says,  "securing 
justice  for  the  humble  and  the  miserable,  dispensing  to 
all  a  just  equity."     In  his  poem  on  Salamis,  he  says, 


GREEK  CONTRIBUTION  TO  POLITICS    123 

"Disdain  of  law  has  filled  the  state  with  evils.  Where 
law  reigns  it  produces  order  and  harmony,  and  restrains 
the  wicked.  It  smoothes  the  rough  places,  stifles  pride, 
quenches  violence,  and  nips  misfortune  in  the  bud.  It 
straightens  crooked  ways,  subdues  haughtiness,  and  re- 
presses sedition.  It  tames  the  fury  of  baleful  discord; 
and  so  men's  affairs  are  brought  into  harmony  and 
reasott." 

Is  there  not  kinship  between  these  ideas,  and  that  of 
the  Sicilian  in  the  eighty-fourth  Olympiad,  named  Em- 
pedocles,  who  taught  that  Love  is  the  creative  and  bind- 
ing principle  in  the  universe,  and  that  the  separating, 
disintegrating  force  is  Hate?  who  taught  that  the  per- 
fect state  of  the  earthly  existence  is  Harmony  and  the 
imperfect  state  is  Discord?  that  Love  is  the  fountain, 
Hate  the  destructive  principle  of  things? 

This  is  the  underlying  principle  of  the  tragedies  of 
i^schylus,  who  began  to  interpret  the  old  mythology 
in  the  light  of  a  guiding  Providence  which  rewards  man 
according  to  hi?  works.  The  spiritual  world,  according 
to  .-Eschylus,  as  well  as  the  natural  world,  is  ruled  by 
reason — where  prevails  law  instead  of  anarchy. 

/Eschylus  and  Aristophanes,  and  to  a  degree  Sopho- 
cles and  Euripides,  were  preachers  of  righteousness  to 
a  degenerating  age.  They  failed  to  bring  Athens  to 
repentance  because  their  message,  brilliant  as  it  was, 
could  not  much  check  the  ini'n-idualism  and  the  tendency 
to  anarchy  and  dissolution  to  which  they  were  swiftlv 
hastening.  It  was  here  that  Socrates  came — for  the 
Greeks,  too  late,  but  for  us.  let  us  hope,  not  too  soon. 
Socrates  took  up  the  principle  of  the  control  of  Provi- 


',1  I 


124  THE  NEW  POLITICS 

dence  (to  say  the  same  thing  rehgiously).  and  made  the 
first  advance  toward  a  comprehensive  statement  of  the 
tmion  of  the  concrete  with  the  universal.  Jesus  took 
the  second  and  final  step,  and  future  human  thought 
on  historic  lines,  at  least,  can  make  no  progress  outside 
the  Greek  form  and  the  Christian  content.  For,  as 
Hegel  has  said,  "We  affirm  absolutely  that  nothing  great 
in  the  world  has  been  accomplished  without  passion. 
Two  elements,  therefore,  enter  into  the  object  of  an 
investigation,  the  first  the  idea,  the  second  the  complex 
of  human  passion;  the  one  the  warp,  the  other  the 
woof  of  the  vast  arras-web  of  universal  history.  The 
concrete  mean  and  union  of  the  two  is  liberty,  under 
the  conditions  of  morality  in  a  state." 

We  must  understand  once  for  all — and  this  the  Greeks 
have  taught  us  in  the  splendor  of  their  ideals  and  as 
truly  in  the  tragedy  of  their  history — that  we  did  not 
somehow  fall  together  without  reason  and  without  God. 
As  no  child  ever  grew  to  noble  manhood  following  the 
blind  paths  of  whim  and  impulse,  so  no  great  people  ever 
developed  on  the  hit-or-miss  lack  of  plan  and  reason 
and  mission — never  will  fulfill  a  noble  destiny  by  a  for- 
tuitous concourse  of  political  atoms — cannot  grow 
toward  a  divine  humanity  without  reason  and  without 
God.  This  idea,  before  it  came  to  its  substanti-'.l  per- 
fection, passed  through  three  minds,  which  for  power 
and  breadth  have  never  for  a  given  space  of  time — if 
in  all  the  spaces  of  time — been  equaled  in  the  recorded 
history  of  the  world. 

Socrates,  a  true  son  of  Zeus,  found  new  and  rational 
moral  grounds  for  the  being  of  the  state  and  for  politi- 


GREEK  CONTRIBUTION  TO  POLITICS    125 

cal  association  in  the  principles  of  pure  ethics,  so  broad 
and  so  reasonable  that  their  immanent  rationality  has 
laid  itself  lovingly  on  intelligent  and  unselfish  beings  to 
this  day.    He  parted  with  his  predecessors  when  he  left 
the    standpoint    of    individualism    and    looked    upon 
humanity  as  a  whole  and  found  in  it  that  which  dis- 
tinguished it  from  all  other  sentient  creation— reason. 
Thus  he  arrived  at  the  purely  Greek  idea  in  another  and 
systematic  way  and  placed  it  on  a  permanent  foundation. 
He  taught  that  in  his  very  nature  as  a  rational  being 
man  was  intended  for  a  social  and  political  life,  to  which 
the  individual  may  not  place  his  will  in  opposition.     His 
immortal  pupil,  Aristocles,  whom  they  nicknamed  Plato, 
because  he  had  broad  shoulders  undertook  the  burden 
of  systematizing  the  teachings  of  his  master  and  if  from 
all  the  splendid  mass  of  his  inspiring  work  we  elimi- 
nate the  Utopian  and  retain  the  ideal,  we  find  his  teach- 
ing reduced  to  this,  that  the  adequate  life  worthy  of 
man's  estate  is  the  life  of  reason  as  opposed  to  impulse. 
It  is  in  the  ideal  state  the  ideal  man  is  found,  the  state 
where  the  ideal   of  justice  finds  visible  and  concrete 
embodiment.     Aristotle,   pupil  of   Plato  and   tutor   of 
Alexander,  laid  the  idea  on  scientific  foundations,  and 
gave  a  new  direction  and  a  new  content  to  the  future 
political  history  of  the  world. 

In  Aristotle,  reason  is  the  final  arbiter  of  political  life, 
and  law  becomes  the  vehicle  of  the  public  conscience, 
not  something  extraneous  as  a  policeman  with  his  club 
— for  his  was  not  the  modern  policeman  theory  of  the 
state.  He  makes  a  fundamental  distinction  between 
those  who  obev  the  force  behind  the  law  and  tr.osc  who 


ij6 


THE  NKW  POLITICS 


obey  tlic  reason  within  tiic  law.  The  imlividualistic 
coniiJCtitive  coiitlict  of  liuinaii  passions  was  as  irrational 
to  him  as  tiie  will  of  an  iron  despotism  cbiiming  blind 
.ml  sullen  ol)C(lience.  Law  compelled  society  by  its 
"sweet  reasonableness,"  as  I'lato  beautifully  expresses  it 
in  the  Crito,  where  the  laws  came  in  person  to  Socrates 
in  prison — came  to  him  not  as  jailers,  but  as  his  friends, 
counselors,  coadjutors,  and  partners  in  all  good.  And 
so  Aristotle  says,  "Men  should  not  think  it  slavery  to 
live  according  to  the  rule  of  the  constitution,  for  it  is 
their  salvation."  "It  is  evident,"  he  says  further,  "that 
that  government  is  best  which  is  so  established  that 
ez'cry  one  therein  may  have  it  in  his  power  to  act  virtu- 
ously and  to  live  happily."  Shall  we  with  Plato  con- 
ceive of  the  legislator  as  dpv«Te«Twv  laying  foundation 
and  framework  of  a  rational  human  society  which  is 
the  "just  man  writ  large,"  or  with  Aristotle,  that  the 
state  not  only  exists  for  life,  but  for  noble  life,  or 
with  Socrates  and  Plato  and  Ari'^:  >tle  in  th"  eround  idea 
common  to  all  three  that  Politics  mvolves  knowledge  of 
the  highest  good  of  man  and  means  of  the  attainment 
of  such  values  as  are  not  monetary,  but  both  human 
and  divine?  The  conception  that  the  state  exists  but  to 
protect  life  and  property  never  entered  the  mind  of  a 
rational  Greek  as  an  adequate  content  for  a  political 
philosophy. 

To  the  Greek  the  law  which  was  recognized  as  binding 
upon  all  was  in  reason,  not  command.  The  law  lay  deep  in 
the  reason,  and  was  the  expression  of  that  reason  because 
it  was  adapted  to  the  higher  necessities  of  mankind. 
Without  those  laws  which  the  Greek  state  threw  around 


GRI:i:K  CONTRIIiCTION  TO  POLITICS    i-v 


her  citizens  and  wliicli  constituted  the  state  in  motion 
as  it  were,  l.'.ws  which  were  the  results  of  political 
power  limited  only  by  the  p<jwer  of  securing  the  good 
life  for  every  citizen,  it  was  conceived  that  the  individual 
had  no  rights,  nor  had  he  the  chance  outside  of  the  state 
of  leading  a  rational  life,  and  the  rational  life,  according 
to  Plato,  is  the  life  governed  by  reason  as  opposed  to  the 
one  governed  by  impulse. 

Aristotle's  Politics  was  a  continuation  of  his  work 
on  Ethics.  With  him  Politics  and  Ethics  are  one.  They 
constitute  two  points  of  view  of  the  same  subject- 
human  association — at  right  angles  as  it  were— each  with 
the  other.  The  true  end  of  the  individual  and  the  true 
end  of  society  are  the  same — the  ultimate  common  good. 
Here  he  anticipated  Christianity. 

The  old  Greek  had  a  firm  hold  on  an  idea  the  modern 
world  has  forgotten  or  despised.  We  must  come  back 
to  it  before  we  can  attain  to  a  rational,  that  is  to  say, 
ethical  Politics. 

The  Greek  understood  that  there  are  no  rights  without 
duties,  no  liberty  without  law ;  and  that  both  rights  and 
duties  imply  a  common  interest,  a  common  good,  a 
common  life.  Moreover,  they  laid  the  foundation  of 
politics  when  they  founded  the  implications  of  rights  and 
duties  in  a  common  good.  An  association  which  confers 
rights,  imposes  duties;  and  a  departure  from  this 
principle  of  reciprocity,  which  is  the  underlying  prin- 
ciple of  true  politics,  leads  to  anarchy  or  absolutism. 
For  to  the  individual  as  to  the  state,  all  rights  and  no 
duties  is  as  dangerous  as  all  duties  and  no  rights. 

Aristotle.  Pol.,  I.  ii,  9: 


m 


fw 


"n 


I -'8 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


".  .  .  Man  is  by  nature  a  political  animal.  And  he  who 
by  nature  and  not  by  accident  is  without  a  state,  is  either 
above  humanity  or  below  it ;  he  is  the  .  .  .  'Tribeless, 
lawless,  hearthless  one,'  whom  Homer  denounces — the 
outcast  who  is  a  child  of  war;  he  may  be  compared  to  a 
bird  which  flies  alone." 

Pol.,  I,  ii,  14: 

"The  pi  oof  that  the  state  is  a  creation  of  nature  and 
prior  to  the  individual  is  that  the  individual  when  iso- 
lated is  not  self-sufficing;  and  therefore  lie  is  like  a  part 
in  relation  to  tlie  whole.  But  he  who  is  unable  to  live  in 
society,  or  who  has  no  need  because  he  is  sufficient  to 
himself,  must  be  either  a  beast  or  a  god — he  is  no  part 
of  a  state.  A  social  instinct  is  implanted  in  all  men  by 
nature.  .  .  .  ^lan  when  perfected  is  the  best  of  animals, 
but  when  separated  from  law  and  justice,  he  is  the  worst 
of  all,  since  armed  injustice  is  tlie  most  dangerous,  and 
he  is  equipped  with  the  arms  of  intelligence  and  with 
moral  qualities  which  he  may  use  for  the  worst  ends. 
Therefore  if  he  have  not  virtue  he  is  the  most  unholy 
and  tlie  most  savage  of  animals.  .  .  .  But  justice  is  the 
bond  of  men  in  stales  and  ...  is  the  principle  of  order 
in  political  society. 

Pol.,  VII,  I  : 

"He  who  would  inquire  about  the  best  form  of  a  state 
ought  first  to  determine  which  is  tlie  most  eligible  life." 

Pol.,  VH,  i,  14: 

"Let  us  assume  that  the  best  life  both  for  individuals 
and  states  is  the  life  of  virtue,  having  eternal  goods 
enough  for  the  performance  of  good  actions." 

Pol..  VII,  ii,  5: 


GREEK  CONTRIBUTION  TO  POLITICS    129 

"Now  it  is  evident  that  tlie  fomi  of  government  is  best 
in  which  every  man,  whoever  he  is,  can  act  for  the  best 
and  live  ha.  nilv." 


The:  .  splendid  and  rational  thinkers  laid  the  rational 
fonnda'  '■  lU,-  for  a  modern  political  instmment  but  half  un- 
derstood and  not  half  worked;  an  instrument  which  de- 
fines clearly  its  ethical,  benevolent,  and  purposive  mission 
— a  mission  behind  and  directing  all  the  articles  and  all  the 
amendments,  all  the  meaning  and  all  the  purpose  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States — "To  promote  the 
general  ivelfare." 

While  the  political  philosophy  of  the  Greeks  was  for 
the  most  part  historical  and  analytical  instead  of  antici- 
patory and  constructive,  the  age  of  Pericles  and  its  prac- 
tical protest  against  individualism,  in  its  art,  its  culture, 
its  patriotism,  laid  the  foundation  for  a  national  solution 
of  political  principles  on  a  nobler  scale  than  the  world 
had  ever  known  before.  Observe,  if  you  please,  I  am 
speaking  of  political  theory,  not  practice — Politics,  not 
political  science.  Socrates,  in  taking  issue  with  the 
Sophists  and  their  elaborate  system  of  utilitarianism,  for 
the  first  recorded  time  in  the  history  of  the  world  laid 
the  foundation  of  an  ethic  which  would  include  the 
whole  field  of  Politics.  Whatever  nipy  be  said  of  the 
details  of  Plato's  Utopianism,  the  main  idea  of  the 
Republic  is  the  necessity  of  organic  unity  in  social  and 
political  life.  "The  just  man  is  like  a  well-ordered  city, 
the  unjust  man  like  anarchy,"  he  declares.  It  will  not 
be  too  great  praise  to  ascribe  to  the  pupil  of  Plato,  so 
far  as  politics  is  concerned,  the  laurel  of  supremacy  over 


I30  THE  NEW  TOLITICS 

all  other  members  of  the  liuman  race.  Yet  his  works  are 
liardly  taught  in  an  adeciuate  way  in  a  single  school  or 
college  or  university  of  tiie  United  States.  The  guid- 
ing principle  in  Arisioile"s  methods  of  thought  is  the 
rational  choice  of  the  mean  between  the  extremes  of 
conduct.  In  a  discussion  involving  indiviilualism  vs. 
socialism,  for  example,  he  woukl  liave  found  in  the  golden 
mean  a  solution  of  the  problem. 

It  is  tlie  commonly  accepted  account  of  political  phi- 
losophers that  it  is  to  .\ristotle  we  are  indebted  for  the 
"separation"  of  etliics  and  politics.  To  my  mind  this  is 
owing  to  a  most  extraordinary  lack  of  insight  and  per- 
haps to  a  lack  of  comprehension  of  what  Aristotle  was 
driving  at,  or  it  may  have  arisen  from  that  all  too 
common  characteristic  of  the  mind  of  man,  which  has 
been  reading  its  Aristotle  as  those  read  their  Bible 
whom  Ruskin  likened  to  the  hedgehogs  eating  grapes 
by  rolling  er  in  them  and  eating  those  which  stuck 
to  their  quills. 

Aristotle  in  the  opening  chapters  of  the  Xicomachean 
Ethics  seeks  an  e.ul  like  the  target  of  an  archer,  with 
reference  to  which  he  may  study  the  question  of  ethics. 
"Now  one  would  naturally  suppose  it  to  be  the  end  of 
that  which  is  most  commanding  and  exclusive  and  to 
this  description  Politics  plainly  answers.  ...  It  must 
include  tlie  Good  of  Man.  And  grant  that  this  is  the 
same  to  the  individual  and  to  the  community,  yet  surely 
that  of  the  latter  is  plainly  greater  and  more  perfect  to 
discover  and  preserve;  for  to  do  this  even  for  a  single 
individual  were  a  matter  for  contentment,  but  to  do  it 
for  a  whole  nation  .  .  .  were  more  noble  and  godlike." 


J  i 


GREEK  CONTRIBUTION  TO  POLITICS    131 

His  closing  chapter  in  the  Ethics  is  an  introduction 
to  the  Pohtics,  as  his  whole  book  is  a  preparation  for 
that  study.  In  the  Nichomachean  Ethics  he  considers  the 
theory  and  in  the  Politics  the  practice  of  virtue.  In 
this  last  chapter  he  asks  if  his  original  purpose  is  com- 
pleted. ''Must  we  not  acknowledge  what  is  commonly 
said,  that,  in  matters  of  moral  action,  mere  speculation 
and  knowledge  is  not  the  real  End,  but  rather  practice. 
.  .  .  Now  if  talking  and  writing  were  to  make  men  good, 
they  would  justly,  as  Theognis  obser  v  es,  have  re.'  -led 
numerous  and  great  rewards.  .  .  .  Men  such  as  tnese 
then  what  mere  words  can  transform?  .  .  .We  shall  want 
laws  on  these  points  .  .  .  respecting  one's  whole  life, 
since  the  mass  of  men  are  amenable  to  compulsion 
rather  than  reason,  and  to  punishment  rather  than  a 
sense  of  honor.  .  .  .  The  Lacedaemonian  is  nearly  the 
only  state  in  which  the  framer  of  the  Constitution  has 
made  any  provision,  it  would  seem,  respecting  the  food 
and  manner  of  living  of  the  people;  in  most  states  these 
points  are  entirely  neglected,  and  each  man  lives  just 
as  he  likes,  ruling  his  wife  and  children  Cyclops-fashion." 

Aristotle's  idea  of  ethics  was  that  it  was  all  inclusive, 
and  he  would  have  indorsed  Samuel  Johnson's  saying 
that  it  "is  one  of  the  studies  which  ought  to  begin  with 
the  first  glimpse  of  reason  and  only  end  with  life  itself." 

Aristotle  not  only  has  not  separated  Ethics  from  Poli- 
tics, but  it  can  fairly  be  doubted  whether  he  ever  clearly 
distinguished  between  the  two.  If  it  is  meant  that  he 
viewed  society  from  two  points  of  view,  the  ethical  and 
political,  it  cannot  of  course  be  denied.  But  that  he 
found  common  ground — indeed,  that  he  found  the  ground 


'*W'\ 


132 


THE  NEW  POLITI 


common,  no  student  of  Aristotle  can  successfully  deny. 
He  certainly  distinguished  between  ethics  and  political 
science.      Ethics   and   practical   politics,    studied    retro- 
spectively and  analytically,  are  certainly  sei)arate(l,   for 
Aristotle  in  the  examination  of   158  ancient  constitu- 
tions and  forms  of  Government  must  analyze  existing 
affairs  and  these  never  coincide  with  ideals  of   right. 
Ethics  aid  practical  political  science  must  be  separated. 
Thus  Aristotle  separated  them.     This  misconception  of 
Aristotle  down  to  this  day  is  that  of  those  who  mis- 
conceive politics  and  fail  to  distinguish  between  political 
science   and   politics   or   political   philosophy — a    failure 
common  to  many  of  the  world  authorities  on  the  subject 
in  and  out  of  our  great  universities.     Political  science 
has  to  do  with  facts  and  is  undisturbed  by  the  intrusion 
or  elimination  of  ethical  values.     Political  science  con- 
cerns itself  with  what  is  and  what  has  beca.     Political 
philosophy  or  politics  including  this  field  also  looks  for- 
ward as  well  as  backward  and  considers  what  ought 
to  be.     It  is  because  our  politics  has  ceased  to  consider 
what  ought  to  be,  that  it  has  become  something  else  than 
politics,    for   politics   is   a   part    of    the    philosophy   of 
humanity,    from  which  the  ethical  element  cannot  be 
eliminated. 

Let  us  therefore  distinguish  between  the  science  and 
the  Philosophy  of  Politics.  Pure  chemistry  knows  no 
ethical  value,  but  when  its  compounds  are  considered 
from  a  wider  point  of  view  as  poisons  and  foodstuffs, 
the  ethical  element  enters.  Science  can  give  no  adequate 
account  of  any  phases  of  human  affairs  because  ethical 
values  are  foreign  to  it.     This   is  why  the  scientific 


GREEK  CONTRIBUTION  TO  POLITICS    133 

account  of  life  is  inadequate  and  must  call  in  philosophy. 
It  is  as  helpless  without  philosophy  as  philosophy  without 
science. 

Human  conduct  cannot  be  the  subject  of  human  con- 
sideration without  regard  to  that  simple  and  everlasting 
matter  of  riglit  and  wrong.  Nor  can  it  be  considered 
outsiae  or  independent  of  political  association.  Aris- 
totle never  wrote  of  human  conduct  without  reference 
to  both  of  these  considerations.  He  never  divided  the 
field  of  speculation.  He  never  "separated"  them.  He 
always  insisted  that  they  were  one,  as  Plato  and  Socrates 
did  before  him.  Aristotle  closed  his  volume  on  the  Nico- 
machean  Ethics  and  wrote  practically  "To  be  continued 
in  our  next,"  and  his  ne.xt  was  his  Politics.  And  through- 
out the  whole  of  this  monumental  work  which  has  had 
more  influence  on  the  Politics  of  mankind  than  any  other 
book  excepting  the  Bible,  Aristotle  develops  the  Ethical 
idea  in  Politics.  He  positively  does  not  separate  the  two 
ideas  in  any  fundamental  sense. 

What  Aristotle  tried  to  portray  in  his  Politics  was  the 
highest  form  of  human  association,  such  as  would  pro- 
duce the  noblest  form  of  human  life. 

The  state  exists  "not  only  for  the  sake  of  life,  but 
for  the  noble  life,"  etc.  But  even  here  the  principle  is 
recognized  that  the  state  exists  for  man,  not  man  for  the 
state,  in  a  theory  which  involves  an  immanent  Good. 
It  involves  also  an  adequate  theory  of  humanity. 

The  fundamental  fault  of  American  Politics  and  eco- 
nomics is  that  neither  is  based  upon  an  adequate  estimate 
of  humanity.  This  shows  itself  nowhere  more  in  both 
theory  and  practice  than  in  the  divorce  of  ethics  from 


I 


ill 
^!  1 


134 


THE  XKW  POLITICS 


politics  and  economics,  and  of  religion  from  life.  A 
stranger  need  not  walk  far  to  finil  tiiat  from  our  scheme 
of  values,  confined  largely  to  monetary  standards,  has 
arisen  the  "business  theory  of  state,"  which  was  the 
theory  of  Bentliam,  the  individualists  of  the  Revolution 
and  of  the  JetYersonian  democracy;  the  democracy  of 
all  rights  and  no  duties.  The  puerile  inadequacy  of 
anything  that  might  be  named  a  political  philosophy  in 
this  country  will  be  seen  in  comparison  with  the  im- 
mortal and  yet  forgotten  conception  of  the  Greeks  over 
twenty  centuries  ago. 

Politics,  then,  is  one  aspect  of  human  economics  with 
special  reference  to  good  and  evil  The  protracted  efifori 
to  separate  politics  and  ethics  cannot  be  reconciled  with 
singleness  of  purpose  and  sanity  of  judgment.  The 
responsibility  for  the  Initiative  must  not  be  borne  by 
Aristotle,  but  be  shared  somehow  between  Machiavelli 
and  Mepliistopheles. 

Machiavelli  is  the  exponent  of  the  modern  point  of 
view.  He  succeeded  in  his  emphasis  of  the  doctrine 
that  the  end  justifies  the  means  in  establishing  troni  the 
individualist  standpoint  the  doctrine  wliich  became  the 
foundation  of  Jesuitism,  modern  politics  and  economics 
and  the  modern  American  political  machine,  including 
the  engineer,  viz.,  tlie  "boss."  Machiavelli's  point  of 
view  is  pure  individualism  in  which  etiiics  and  politics 
are  separated. 

Conceiving  only  an  end  to  be  gained  and  taking  no 
account  of  morality,  Mach.iavelli  is  t!ie  fatlicr  of  modern 
politics.  Religion,  morality — indeed,  everything  is  but 
an  instrument  to  «;ecure  the  end.    Self-interest  is  the  only 


GRKEK  CONTRIBUTION  TO  POLITICS    135 

political  interest  of  prince  or  state.     In  Machiavelli  Js 
the  separation  of  politics  and  ethics  coinplete. 

The  individualist  theory  is  that  politics  and  political 
economy  are  identical.     This  is  the  "Business  theory  of 
the  State."    But  it  must  be  remembered  that  economics 
and  political  economy  are  two  different  things.    Eco- 
nomics  is   the  theory  of  wealth.      Politics   includes   a 
theory  of  legislation  as  well  as  of  the  state  with  refer- 
ence to  human  welfare.    Political  economy  is  the  political 
aspect  of  trade  and  industry.     The  politics  of  a  true 
democracy  includes  a  theory  of  the  state  in  which  good 
will,  not  antagonism,  predominates — a  theory  of  govern- 
ment of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people, 
under  a  constitution  which  asserts  our  duties  with  our 
rights,  "to  promote  the  general  welfare."    This  phrase 
of  our  constitution  is  the  nearest  approach  in  modern 
politics  to  the  famous  dictum  of  Aristotle,  "The  state 
exists  not  merely  for  life,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  noble 
life,"  that  we  must  hold  political  society  together  for 
the  sake  of  honorable  deeds,  not  for  the  sake  of  a  joint 
livelihood,  as  the  modern  individualistic  theor>'  construes 
it  as  a  bread  and  butter  mutual  insurance  company. 
Pol.,  Bk.  Ill,  ix.  6: 

"But  a  state  exists  for  the  sake  of  a  good  life,  and  not 
for  the  sake  of  life  only;  if  life  only  were  the  object, 
slave  and  brute  animals  might  form  a  state.  .  .  .  Nor 
does  a  state  exist  for  the  sake  of  alliance  and  security 
from  injustice,  nor  yet  for  the  sake  of  exchange  and 
mutual  intercourse.  .  .  .  Those  who  care  for  good 
government  take  into  consideration  virtue  and  vice  in 
Whence  it  may  be  further  inferred  that  virtue 


li 


Kit 


states. 


13^' 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


must  be  the  serious  care  of  a  state  which  truly  deser\-es 
tlie  name,  for  without  this  ethical  end  the  commi'Mity 
becomes  a  mere  alliance." 

The;i  Aristotle  speaks  scornfully  of  Lycophron  the 
sophist,  wlio  seems  to  have  held  the  modern  democratic 
doctrine  that  the  state  is  only  a  "machine  for  the  protec- 
tion of  life  and  property." 


CHAPTER  III 


PATERNALISM 

There  is  a  certain  pathos  in  that  confusion  of  mind 
prevaihng  among  many  who  are  supposed  to  be  think- 
ing people,  regarding  those  ethical  actions  of  the  nation 
in  recognition  of  the  obligations  it  sustains  to  the  indi- 
vidual whose  duties  it  claims.  If  a  certain  legislation  can 
be  called  "paternalism,"  or  "socialism,"  it  is  at  once  rele- 
gated to  the  limbo  of  the  shockingly  impossible,  as  if 
these  two  classifications  (were  they  true  ones,  which  they 
are  not)  would  affect  the  value  of — for  example — 
national  legislation  against  tlie  microbe,  which  knows  no 
state  boundary  lines,  or  board  fences;  or,  for  example, 
again,  our  "paternal"  public  school  system. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  difference  between  the 
theorist  and  statesman.  Von  Humboldt  was  a  radical. 
His  conception  of  the  state  was  in  keeping  with  the  pre- 
vailing idea  of  his  age,  acknowledging  very  narrow 
limits  to  the  functions  of  the  state;  i.  e.,  as  maintaining 
"security  against  both  external  enemies  and  internal  dis- 
sensions" (Sphere  and  Duties  of  Government).  He 
went  so  far  as  to  condemn  state  education,  but  when  he 
came  to  closer  quarters  with  actual  government  he  found 
that  the  best  way  to  advance  the  intellectual  equipment 
of  the  Prussian  nation  was  in  the  establishment  of 
state  schools  which  he  had  condemned.  He  did  not  stop 
here,  but  extended  further  the  scope  and  power  of  the 
state. 

137 


■I 


I3« 


THE  Xr:\V  POLITICS 


Herbert  Spencer's  theory  of  politics  realized  would 
result  in  the  dissolution  of  the  state.  He  even  argues 
against  public  schools  and  education  at  the  public  ex- 
pense. Perhaps  his  views  would  have  been  modified 
had  he  been  called  to  tlie  administration  of  affairs. 

It  would  be  very  difficult,  even  in  this  Itiisscz  fairc 
country,  to  find  any  formidable  array  of  intelligence  sup- 
porting the  limited  reasoning  of  the  Economist,  the  late 
Professor  I'awcelt  of  Cambridge  University,  who  was 
so  opposed  to  the  idea  of  state  interference  tliat  he  fought 
the  principle  of  Nationalism  as  expressed  in  a  pulilic 
system,  and  opposed  the  support  of  public  schools  Ijy 
the  state,  declaring  that  he  was  willing  that  the  stigma  of 
pauperism  should  cling  to  those  who  allowed  the  state  to 
educate  their  children;  because  early  in  the  last  century 
the  government  poor  laws  had  reduced  to  pauperism  one 
in  every  four  of  the  population  of  Great  Britain.  Our 
American  common  school  system  is  not  paternalism. 
It  is  not  socialism.  If  it  is  either,  then  by  all  means 
let  us  have  some  more  of  whichever  it  is. 

I  have  often  fancied  the  Cr  'gressional  Library  a 
public  affront  to  the  sensil)ilitics  of  every  downright  in- 
dividualist who  might  wave  his  hand  in  wrath  toward 
the  Caj)itol  for  unjustly  spending  the  money  of  people 
who  cannot  even  read  for  such  a  building — such  a  pile 
of  books  and  such  an  incomparable  system  as  Mr.  Put- 
nam's. "Let  every  man  buy  his  own  books,"  I  hear  him 
say,  and  as  he  looks  further  down  the  hill  he  will  con- 
tinue: "Let  every  man  study  his  own  bugs  and  do  his 
own  sanitation.  These  paternalistic  sanitations  of  ours 
nre  not  consistent  with  my  eighteenth  century  ideas." 


PATERNALISM 


139 


There  is  a  pathos  in  the  mutldlehcadness  of  most 
of  our  "great  men"  on  some  of  these  elemental  questions. 
I  do  not  find  in  the  speeches  or  writings  of  most  of  our 
American  politicians  evidence  of  a  clear  idea  of  the 
modification  of  the  principle  of  state  interference  and 
state  control,  by  the  simple  fact  of  democracy — the 
fact  that  all  this  kind  of  ethical  legislation  is  voluntary, 
that  is.  self-imposed.  It  is  not  socialism,  because  it  up- 
holds the  dignity  and  freedom  of  the  individual.  It  is 
not  paternalism,  because  true  democracy  is  fratcrnal- 
ism,  not  paternali.sm.  Tlie  rational  imposition  of  ethical 
legislation  upon  oursckcs — the  surrender  of  certain  of 
our  rights  to  the  general  welfare — this  is  the  soul  of  the 
democracy  of  nationalism.  There  is  no  paternalism 
without  a  pater. 

To  speak  of  paternalisin  under  self-government  is 
to  publish  a  puzzleheadness  quite  truly  American.  To 
speak  of  it  with  feeling  is  a  pathetic  admission  of  label 
and  livery  in  the  service  of  some  predato.y  cave-dwellers 
of  individualism,  whose  usurped  precincts  are  fu'l  of 
pirated  goods  in  danger  of  some  impending  ethical 
Nemesis.  Paternalism  is  impossible  under  self-govern- 
ment. It  is  only  possible  under  a  government  of  ruler 
and  subjects.  That  this  distinction  has  not  been  made 
is  because  we  have  failed  to  distinguish  between  those 
forms  of  government  which  for  thousands  of  years  have 
meant  forcible  control  by  power  foreign  to  the  will  and 
interests  and  sentiments  of  the  people  and  a  form  of 
government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the 
people. 

A  concrete  illustration  of  what  T  mean  will  be  found 


I40 


THK  NKVV   POLITICS 


in  a  comparison  of  state  interference  lunler  a  monarchy 
and  a  democracy.  In  Germany  paternalism  in  the  form, 
e.  g.,  of  government  owncrshij)  of  railroads,  means  that 
tlie  railroads  have  been  taken  away  from  the  people  and 
practically  given  to  the  I'mperor.  'llie  railroad  is  a 
part  of  the  i)olitical  machine,  if  yon  please,  a  part  of  the 
military  machine — practically  controlled  by  one  man — 
the  Emperor  of  (lermany.  While  in  some  respects  the 
people  benefit,  after  all  the  people  are  despoiled  of  prop- 
erty and  power. 

In  New  Zealand  the  exact  reverse  is  trne.  The  rail- 
roads have  been  taken  from  the  hands  of  exploitation 
and  tnrned  over  to  the  people.  They  have  become  a  part 
of  the  Commonwealth.  In  this  millennial  island  the 
people  are  friends,  not  enemies,  without  millionaires  and 
witliout  paupers.  The  New  Zealanders  have  not  only 
the  largest  private  and  individual  wealth  per  capita  in 
the  world,  $1,500  for  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in 
the  country,  but  each  individual  is,  over  and  above  all 
this,  a  part  owner  in  tlie  splendid  properties  of  the  state, 
of  which  each  individual  is  an  organic  and  responsible 
part.  There  Government  ownership  does  not  militate 
against  private  property.  But  the  fraternal  spirit  out  of 
which  government  ownership  has  sprung  has  begun  to 
solve  the  racking  problem  of  older  and  less  happy 
civilizations — the  problem  of  distribution. 

Paternalism  under  tlie  Louis  who  said,  "I  am  the 
state,"  was  essentially  and  fundamentally  difTerent  from 
what  here,  under  democratic  institutions,  many  alleged 
intelligent  individualists  speak  of  with  rage  and  fear  as 
paternalism.     There  can  be  no  paternalistn   vvithont  a 


Jn^-« 


PATER..  ALISM 


141 


paternal  government.    Governvtcut  control  with  us  is  the 

political  aspect  of  self-control.  Vunn  tlie  American 
staiulpoiiit  law  and  constitution  are  not  imposed  upon 
us  by  a  power  extraneous  to  ourselves  and  successful 
because  stronger.  We  are  power.  Law  and  coiistilu- 
tion  are  tliose  forms  of  our  own  corporate  reason  which 
we  have  tlirown  around  ourselves  in  the  compromise  of 
civilized  government.  And  we  are  the  government 
through  our  representatives.  If  we  do  not  like  our  own 
government  we  can  change  it.  for  we  Iiave  no  irrespon- 
sible monarch  prmiaimiiig,  '"l  am  the  state." 

Government  control,  if  it  be  control,  or  national  self- 
government,  means  the  sclf-gjarding  of  the  rights  of 
1//  the  individuals  by  all  the  individuals,  which  is  all 
the  people  of  a  nation.  It  means  that  if  under  capi- 
talistic centralization  the  sphere  for  independent  action 
is  being  narrowed  and  the  field  of  individual  initiative 
is  being  restricted,  if  under  untrammeled  competition 
the  strong  and  the  cunning  tend  to  occupy  the  entire 
field  of  opportunity,  the  nation  steps  in— that  is,  the 
people  organized,  and  bring  this  instrument— national 
Government— to  bear  in  the  interests  of  individual 
liberty,  which  is  the  sine  qua  non  of  true  democracy. 
But  the  interests  of  individual  liberty  can  be  served  only 
under  constitutional  liberty,  not  monarcliy,  for  real 
individual  liberty  does  not  mean  license  to  capricious 
action. 

Individualism  is  defeating  the  very  aim  and  end  of 
democracy,  in  defeating  individual  liberty — not  that 
liberty  is  the  end  of  noble  life,  but  a  necessary  means  to 
that  end.     If  we  are  incapable  of  self-government,  so 


■w^l 


14-' 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


niucli  the  worse  for  us.  Government  control  under  a 
government  of,  and  by,  and  for  the  people  might  better 
be  called  an  ethical  democracy.  If  we  are  afraid  of 
government  control,  we  are  afraid  of  law  and  order, 
c\cn  though  that  law  and  order  are  the  rational  and 
ethical  expressions  of  our  best  selves,  and  not  the 
irresponsible  ipse  dixit  of  a  military  despotism.  This 
distinction  has  been  present  to  most  Americans,  if  at  all, 
in  their  moments  of  absent-mindedness.  But  it  is  a 
fundamental  distinction,  and  it  is  because  we  are  a  self- 
governing  people  that  a  strong  government  is  better 
than  a  weak  one;  a  large  and  complicated  sphere  of 
government  better  than  a  police  force.  And  this  will 
appear  more  and  more  true  in  proportion  as  we  increase 
in  population  and  diversity  of  interest. 

The  growing  system  which  is  at  once  the  bulwark  and 
pride  of  our  nation  is  set  in  the  foundation  of  a  democ- 
racy, and  is  a  recognition  on  the  part  of  tiie  entire  people 
that  the  entire  nation  has  duties  toward  all  the  people 
as  well  as  that  all  the  people  have  rights. 

When  Diderot,  Quesnay,  Condorcet,  Holbach  pro- 
tested against  slate  interference  with  the  religious  be- 
liefs and  the  industrial  pursuits  of  the  humble  citizens 
of  France,  there  was  reason  in  the  doctrine  of  hisses 
fairc. 

But  when  it  is  applied  to  the  institutions  of  a  self- 
governing  free  people,  the  conditions  are  reversed,  and 
there  is  new  meaning  in  the  purposive  mission  of  the 
state. 


CHAPTER  IV 


if 


SOCIALISM 

The  most  eloquent  advocates  of  socialism  the  world 
has  ever  seen  are  "certain  rich  men"  who  need  never 
say  a  word.  It  is  not  that  they  are  rich  men.  Few 
rational  pecple  have  any  valid  objection  to  rich  men  or 
to  reasonable  fortunes.  Moreover,  these  men  are  as 
high  types  of  rich  men  as  ever  got  large  fortunes  to- 
gether, and  the  highest  type  who  ever  got  so  much,  for 
they  have  a  large  portion  of  the  entire  national  wealth. 
This  is  why  the  institution  of  financialism  stands  in  advo- 
cacy of  socialism  instead  of  anarchy.  If  they,  with  their 
financial  power,  were  like  some  of  our  financiers  they 
would  make  anarchists.  The  scientifically  inclined  are 
drawing  curves  to  see  how  long  it  will  take  for  them  or 
others  to  own  it  all.  And  how  much  will  it  take  in  hard 
assets,  with  the  awful  credit  power  that  goes  with  it, 
for  a  few  men  to  own  the  controlling  interest  in  the 
United  States.    Do  they  do  it  now  ? 

It  was  but  a  few  months  ago  (as  things  go)  that  we 
were  frightened  at  Harriman's  two  billions,  and  a  year 
or  two  before  at  Rockefeller's  billion.  Before  the  Civil 
War  all  the  wealth— the  total  capital  of  all  the  million- 
aires in  the  United  States — amounted  to  one  man's  profits 
on  one  deal,  or  his  income  for  a  few  months,  or  perhaps 
weeks. 

This  is  what  is  making  socialists.  If  it  comes  to  the 
point  of  saying  whether  all  the  people  of  the  United 

143 


H 


1'f 


i  'J 


^fj 


144 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


States  shall  own  the  controlling  interest,  or  a  few  men 
shall  own  the  controlling  interest,  the  verdict  of  the 
American  people  will  be  for  themselves — i.  e.,  for 
socialism. 

It  is  quite  amusing,  though  sometimes  exasperating, 
to  have  socialists  pick  up  here  and  there  acts  of  legisla- 
tion tending  toward  social  justice  or  industrial  ame- 
lioration and  hold  them  out  in  the  palms  of  their  hands 
and  say,  "Behold!  so  much  redeemed  to  socialism!" 

There  are  great  areas  of  life  and  thought  common  to 
the  best  minds  and  spirits  of  men  which  cannot  be  fenced 
off  by  a  party  or  monopolized  by  a  sect.  The  religion- 
ist cannot  claim  a  reformed  drunkard  as  a  recruit  to 
Methodism  because  he  has  sworn  off,  nor  can  the  disciple 
of  Brigham  Young  find  an  advance  in  Mormonism  in 
every  flirtation.  Socialism  does  not  mean  merely  asso- 
ciation. Nor  does  the  antithesis  of  individualism  mean 
socialism.  Nor  does  political  socialization  mean  that  it 
is  socialistic. 

Socialism  is  a  system.  It  is  a  life  philosophy  and  it 
hangs  together. 

hidiiidualism  is  a  system.  Christianity  is  a  system. 
It  too  is  a  life  philosophy  and  it  too  hangs  together. 
There  are  some  of  the  teachings  of  the  one  to  be  found 
in  the  other.  But  this  does  net  mean  that  they  are 
identical. 

There  is  a  certain  area  of  socialization  in  society,  if 
I  may  use  the  expression,  which  cannot  be  called  social- 
ism at  all. 

We  must  distinguish  sharply  between  the  purposive 
mission  of  the  state  and  the  aims  of  socialism,  for  it  is 


SOCIALISM 


145 


only  in  the  further  use,  I  may  say  the  historically  intelli- 
gent use,  of  the  principle  of  association  as  opposed  to 
individualism,  of  the  cohesive  as  opposed  to  the  dis- 
junctive forces  of  the  nation,  that  we  shall  find  the  cure 
for  the  tremendous  socialistic  tendency  of  the  day. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  such  words  as  "society"  and 
"association"  are  derived  from  the  same  root  as  the 
word  "socialism." 

The  average  unintelligent  individualist  has  a  certain 
pathetic  and  hopeless  way  about  him  of  confounding 
socialism  with  that  form  of  socialization  which  in  a 
national  state  tends  to  "promote  the  general  welfare." 
To  surrender  to  socialism  the  ethical  purpose  and  mis- 
sion of  a  state  is  sooner  or  later  to  surrender  the  state 
to  socialism. 

T'e  principle  of  government  control  or  state  inter- 
ference, as  the  English  call  it,  or  paternalism,  as  the 
unthinking  call  it,  is  not  and  never  can  be  socialism.  It 
is  indeed  difficult  to  define  socialism.  So  many  vague 
and  Utopian  dreamers  have  identified  it  with  other  things 
that  the  public  is  not  aware  tliat  socialism,  as  socialism, 
as  defined  by  European  authorities  and  accepted  by  the 
great  mass  of  those  who  call  themselves  socialists  to- 
day, means  revolutionary  socialism.  And  revolutionary 
socialism  means  the  abolition  of  practically  all  private 
property,  and  further,  many  believe  in  the  abolition  of 
the  institution  of  the  family.  The  most  revolutionary 
exponents  of  this  doctrine  are  the  c  iitinental  socialists, 
where  radicalism  as  expressed  in  anarchy  or  socialism 
is  reaction  against  tyranny.  Such  theories  as  the  Chris- 
tian Socialism  of  Maurice  and  Kingsley  scarcely  exist 


I 


146 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


to-day.  Socialism  is  sweeping  over  the  world  like  a 
flood,  and  Canute  cannot  drive  it  back.  This  is  the  most 
tremendous  social  fact  in  the  world  to  be  reckoned  with 
by  the  statesman  of  to-day. 

Socialism  is  not  an  ethical  democracy.  It  is  not  fra- 
ternal. When  one  speaks  of  fraternalism  he  must  be 
very  careful  that  he  is  speaking  of  something  which  in- 
cludes the  spirit  as  well  as  the  form  of  fraternalism. 
Just  here  appears  the  danger  of  reaction.  Society 
achieves  no  gain  in  exchanging  one  tyranny  for  another. 
We  do  not  move  forward  by  breaking  up  one  despotism 
and  setting  up  another  despotism.  We  do  not  progress 
by  turning  out  one  set  of  rascals  and  setting  up  another 
set  of  rascals.  The  despotism  of  the  many  is  no  kinder 
than  that  of  the  few.  We  come  in  the  last  analysis  to 
two  things.  We  cannot  build  up  a  sound  nation  of  un- 
sound men.  We  cannot  bind  men  into  a  rational  state 
with  an  unethical  motive.  A  change  of  method  is  not 
a  change  of  motive,  and  a  change  of  method  is  all 
socialism  offers  us.  The  present  world  movement  of 
socialism  is  the  reaction  against  the  baleful  developments 
of  individualism,  resulting  through  untrammeled  com- 
petition in  the  annihilation  of  competition  by  reason  of 
the  fact  that  competition,  unrestrained,  has  carried  its 
death  instruments  in  its  own  bosom. 

The  strong  win.  The  weak  perish.  Everywhere  and 
forevermore  the  strong  exploit  and  prey  upon  the  weak 
— under  monarchy  in  one  way,  under  democracy  in  an- 
other. This  results  in  protest — reaction.  That  reaction 
is  socialism.  Nine  tenths  of  the  socialists  have  been 
made  by  the  indictments  of  individualism,  not  by  the 


SOCIALISM 


147 


panacea  offered  by  socialism.    What  does  socialism  offer  ? 
It  is,  after  all,  the  "economic  interpretation  of  history" 
and  the  promise  of  a  shopkeepers'  or  proletariats'  millen- 
nium.    The  teaching  of  Karl  Marx  is  a  materialism  as 
unrelieved  as  the  individualism  which  crushed  the  child- 
life  c'  Manchester  and  Birmingham  a  hundred  years 
ago.      Before   Marx,    Saint    Simon    and    Fourier    had 
poured  scorn  over  moralist,   idealist,  and  philosopher. 
To  them  these  were  the  word-mongers  of   idealism- 
dealers  in  some  distillation  or  other  form  of  that  spirit- 
ualist theory  which  finds  its  best  known  shape  in  religion. 
All   alike   attempted   to   rule   the   world   by   figments. 
"Duties,"  says  Fourier,  "are  only  the  caprices  of  phi- 
losophers, they  are  human  and  variable;  but  the  passions 
are  the  voices  of  nature  and  God,  and  the  end  of  all 
desires,  the  fullness  of  happiness,  is  that  graduated  opu- 
lence which  puts  one  above  want,  and  through  and  in  it 
the  satisfaction  of  all  one's  passions." 

Marx,  interpreting  politics,  religion,  and  ethics  as  so 
many  phases  of  economics,  and  economics  as  the  science 
of  the  welfare  of  economic  humanity,  and  as  the  sum, 
center,  and  circumference  of  history,  postulating  the 
relations  and  rewards  of  labor  as  the  only  reality  in  all 
history,  presents  us  with  a  dialectic  of  materialism  as  naive 
and  brutal  as  anything  the  human  mind  has  ever 
wrought.  What  motive  underlies  it?  Self-interest. 
\\'hat  end  and  aim  lure  it  ?  Material  concerns.  This  is 
the  philosophy  of  life  it  offers.  And  this  will  never  lay 
the  foundation  of  a  great  state,  nor  satisfy  a  great 
people.  It  is  still  Hedonism  pure  and  simple— still  ego- 
ism,   still    individualism.      Individualism   vs.    Socialism 


''■li 


I4S 


THE  NEW  POLH  ICS 


>■  i 


means  exactly  in  other  words  and  terms :  Egoism  Hedon- 
ism vs.  i'liiz'crsalistic  Hedonism. 

Modern  sociulisin  is  organized  individualism.  It  is 
cooperative  utilitarianism. 

It  is  the  logical  outcome  of  individual  and  competi- 
tive warfare.  It  is  a  protest  against  unorganized  indi- 
vidualism and  organized  financialism  on  the  same  plane. 
It  affords  a  trial  of  strength  with  the  same  weapons 
and  in  the  same  field.  Devoid  of  the  altruistic  motive  it 
is  the  struggle  of  soulless  form  with  chaotic  void.  So- 
cialism is  organized  instinct  and  systematic  and  coordi- 
nated selt'ish  materialism,  and  it  fails  fundamentally  in 
its  philosophy  of  life.  Its  motive  is  egoistic,  not  altru- 
istic. If  it  differs  from  individualism  it  differs  only  in 
method,  not  in  motive.  It  has  borrowed  the  forms  of 
fraternalisiii  with  which  to  deceive  the  elect,  but  it  has 
lost  the  soul  because  it  does  not  believe  in  soul.  It  is 
a  huge  economic  machine,  unillumed  by  a  ray  of  ethics, 
insi)ired  by  no  breath  of  that  spirit  without  which  there 
is  nothing  human  in  man. 

What  we  want  is  a  rational  theory  of  an  ethical  de- 
mocracy. .\iid  tliis  must  begin  in  the  motive  of  good 
will.  It  must  work  from  the  individual  conscience, 
freed  and  emancipated,  toward  a  common  conscience, 
a  cooperative  reason.  Here  modern  socialism  falls  short. 
Marx  practically  begins  with  his  corporate  materialism 
and  works  back  to  the  individual  conscience  and  will,  to 
find  them  enmeshed — enslaved.  Individualism  and  social- 
ism are  both  economic  materialisms,  and  offer  two  as- 
pects of  the  bread-and-butter  theory  of  the  state.  Mr. 
Leslie  Stephen  calmly  remarks,  speaking  of  the  individ- 


SOCIALISM 


149 


nalist  point  of  view,  that  politics  is  a  matter  of  business 
and  resents  the  intrusion  of  first  principles.  The  funda- 
mental maxim  of  Karl  Marx  is  that  all  human  institu- 
tions and  beliefs  are  in  their  ultimate  sources  the  outcome 
of  economic  conditions — in  other  words,  a  matter  of  busi- 
ness.    One  materialism  is  as  brutal  as  the  other. 

A  generation  since,  when  the  philosophy  of  the  world 
was  more  materialistic  than  it  is  to-day  and  life  of  the 
people  was  less  so,  Du  Bois-Reymond  claimed  practi- 
cally that  the  history  of  man  is  the  history  of  tools — that 
it  is  the  history  of  the  invention  of  those  implements 
which  enabled  man  thus  far  to  conquer  and  control  nature. 
Before  this  Marx  had  worked  out  his  conception  of  his- 
tory. Before  him  still,  the  prophets  of  Manchester  worked 
out  their  sodden  gospel.  The  individualistic  political 
economy  is  simply  a  statement  of  the  principles  of  an- 
archy dipped  in  rosewater  and  applied  to  economics. 

It  will  be  admitted  at  once  that  economic  conditions 
have  profoundly  modified  human  history  and  must  ever 
do  so.  There  are  elements,  however,  between  the  lines 
of  economic  latitude,  a  spiritual  longitude,  as  it  were, 
which  have  escaped  the  historic  or  scientific  materialist. 
A  man  is  not  merely  the  most  intelligent  brute  in 
creation;  he  is  not  a  disembodied  spirit,  and  it  must  be 
admitted  that  the  future  does  not  belong  to  the  cultured 
and  refined  except  on  condition  of  a  certain  physical 
basis  of  blood  and  bone  and  brawn. 

The  economic  aspect  of  life  offers  but  one  set  of  the 
vital  problems  connected  with  human  progress,  and  to 
other  than  bread-and-butter  consideration  we  turn  in  our 
weariness  and  ask  with  Savage  Landor,  "Show  me  how 


ii 

n 

4 


k 


ISO 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


great  projects  were  executed,  great  advantages  gained, 
and  great  calamities  averted.  Show  me  the  generals 
and  statesmen  who  stood  foremost,  that  I  may  bend  to 
them  in  reverence.  Let  the  books  of  the  Treasury  lie 
closed  as  religiously  as  the  Sibyl's.  Leave  weights  and 
measures  in  the  market  place,  commerce  in  the  harbor, 
the  Arts  in  the  light  they  love,  philosophy  in  the  shade. 
Place  History  on  her  rightful  throne,  and  at  the  side  of 
her  Eloquence  and  War." 

The  reconciliation  of  the  individual  and  the  state 
rests  in  good  will  and  moral  purpose.  There  social 
and  individual  rights  meet  and  lose  their  antagonisms 
in  this  larger  freedom  of  the  good  will. 

The  departure  from  individualism,  organized  or  ram- 
pant, begins  in  the  dawn  of  the  motive  of  good  will.  I 
mean  that  kindly  and  sweet-tempered  spirit  which  has 
ceased  to  raise  an  ethical  standard  on  the  point  of  view 
of  the  individual  selfishness  and  starts  out  on  the  long 
upward  process  of  evolution  toward  human  sympathy 
and  helpfulness.  I  mean  that  good  will  which  is  opposed 
to  the  principle  of  war  as  the  ruling  instinct  of  humanity, 
and  conceives  the  better  part  in  working  together  for 
the  same  thing  instead  of  against  each  other  for  the 
same  thing — tliat  good  will  whicli  Kant  called  "the  only 
unconditioned  good  in  the  universe." 

The  departure  from  the  individualistic  point  of  view 
is  where  the  individual  ceases  to  be  the  final  court  of 
appeal,  when  the  individual  begins  to  consider  itself 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  universe  and  not  the  universe 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  individual. 

In  politics  and  economics  the  problem  becomes  one  as 


SOCIALISM 


»5i 


to  whether  the  element  of  good  will  shall  find  less  or 
more  scope ;  whether  the  area  of  the  common  good  shall 
be  enlarged  and  restricted — whether,  in  fact,  the  "harmo- 
nious development  of  the  human  race"  lies  toward  the 
motive  of  good  will  and  the  ideal  of  a  united  and 
friendly  humanity,  or  in  the  motive  of  the  selfish  instinct 
and  the  ideal  of  atoms  at  war.  Here  lies  the  problem  of 
politics  and  the  fate  of  democracy,  in  which,  i.  e.,  in 
the  true  democracy,  not  the  false,  is  involved  the  future 
of  human  freedom.  Will  the  "harmonious  development 
of  the  human  race"  and  human  liberty,  in  so  far  as  it 
contributes  to  that  kind  of  development,  result  from  a 
government  more  rational  and  more  ethical — which  is  to 
say  of  more  solidarity — or  from  one  whence  the  cohesive 
power  and  aim  of  reason  have  been  taken  away — and 
which  in  losing  the  boundaries  of  rational  form  and  the 
binding  power  of  good  will  has  lost  both  body  and  soul? 
If  we  agree  that  the  state,  like  the  Sabbath,  was  made 
for  man  and  not  man  for  the  state;  if  we  agree  that  the 
individual  is  the  end  of  civilization  and  of  nature,  then 
let  us  ask  a  further  question.  Is  this  end  so  much  to 
be  desired  attainable  by  each  individual  seeking  his  own 
expansion  and  perfection  independently,  through  the 
motive  of  selfish  instinct,  each  without  reference  to  the 
interests  of  the  rest,  according  to  the  platitudinous  dic- 
tums  of  laisses  faire-ism  in  general,  that  the  good  is  the 
resultant  of  innumerable  conflicting  self-interests;  or  does 
the  perfection  of  human  character,  or  individuality,  lie 
in  discipline,  in  self-identification  with  the  universal 
good,  and  does  that  perfection  lie,  so  far  as  politics 
modifies  it,  toward  anarchy  or  toward  an  ethical  and 


sil 


'52 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


rational  state?  "Morality  is  the  substance  of  the  state, 
or,  in  other  words,  the  state  is  the  development  and  af- 
firmation of  the  people's  united  moral  will;  but  religion 
is  the  substance  of  both  moral  and  iiolitical  life.  The 
state  is  founded  on  the  moral  character  of  the  people  and 
their  morality  is  founded  on  their  religion.  .  .  .  The 
basis  of  the  laws  to  which  men  must  submit  must  exist 
prior  to  all  the  laws  that  are  founded  upon  it.  It  is  the  root 
from  which  they  spring  or  the  developing  substance  of 
their  c  stence.  Apart  from  all  metaphysical  discussion 
on  morality  and  religion,  the  truth  remains,  that  they 
must  ever  be  viczved  as  inseparable.  There  cannot  be  two 
consciences  in  man,  one  for  practical  and  another  for 
religious  interests.  Accordingly,  as  he  deeply  and  sin- 
cerely believes,  so  he  will  act.  Religion  must  be  the  basis 
of  morals,  and  morality  must  be  the  foundation  of  a 
state.  ...  It  is  the  monstrous  error  of  our  times  to 
wish  to  regard  these  inseparable  (politics,  morals,  and 
religion)  as  if  they  have  been  separable  one  from  the 
other:  yea,  as  if  they  were  indifferent  to  one  another 
.  .  .  as  if  the  state's  whole  moral  system,  including  its 
constitution  and  its  laws  as  founded  on  reason,  could 
stand  of  itself  and  on  its  own  ground"  (Hegel). 

The  religion  of  a  people,  like  the  ethics  of  a  people, 
must  be  immanent  in  their  political  ami  social  institu- 
tions. If  this  is  not  possible  in  a  democracy,  then 
democracy  must  go  and  the  people  witli  it.  But  this  is 
not  possible  under  individualism,  for  political  ethics  and 
ethical  politics  are  not  possible  under  individualism. 

Hegel  contends  that  the  Ultramontane  theory  of  re- 
ligious authority  can  never  be  made  to  accord  with  any 


:i 


SOCIALISM 


153 


political  institutions  that  are  not  despotic.  No  govern- 
ment can  be  safe  while  the  people  regard  it  as  existing 
outside  the  sanctions  of  a  religion  found  outside  the 
state.  Not  a  state,  I  take  it,  does  he  mean,  over  which 
religious  authority  is  exercised,  but  through  which  the 
authority  of  the  spiritual  reason  is  supreme. 

A  rational  analysis  of  the  idea  of  the  state  will  show 
not  only  that  we  owe  duties  to  the  state  if  we  claim 
rights,  but  that  the  state  itself  has  duties,  if  we  allow  that 
it  has  rights,  and  if  it  expects  from  us  the  discharge  of 
our  obligations.  In  the  development  of  this  idea  of  reci- 
procity lies  a  completer  idea  of  a  state;  and  in  this  lies 
a  more  congenial  environment  for  happiness  and  virtue. 
For  it  is  just  at  the  point  at  which  we  depart  from  the 
reacting  democracy  of  the  revolutions  of  the  eighteenth 
century — i.  e.,  from  the  pigeon-breasted  catch  phrases  of 
all  right  and  no  duties — it  is  just  where  we  admit  th« 
principle  of  mutual  obligation  that  we  lay  the  psycho- 
logical foundations  of  law  and  order  and  of  the  rational 
state.  For  the  state  is  built  in  the  idea  of  a  common  life. 
What  is  the  substance  of  the  word  justice  but  the  public 
good,  the  common  weal? 

It  is  here — in  the  element  of  reciprocity — that  we  find 
the  justification  of  the  idea  that  the  state  itself  has  duties 
as  well  as  rights,  and  it  is  through  the  function  of  the 
duties  of  a  state  that  it  proceeds  on  sound  and  legitimate 
lines  to  "promote  the  general  welfare." 


I 


*■! 


%4 


CHAPTLiR  V 


THE    INDIVIDUAL    AND    POLITICAL    ENVIRONMENT 

The  question  must  arise  somewhere  about  here  as  to 
whether  a  system  of  anarchy  or  of  law  and  order  offers 
the  better  environment  for  the  development  of  sound 
individuality,  which  (it  must  be  admitted)  is  the  only 
basis  of  sound  nationality.  This  brings  up  the  point 
that  vc  must  distinguish  sharply  between  the  claims 
of  individuality  and  tliose  of  individualism.  In  other 
words,  is  it  under  individualism  or  socialism,  or  that 
nameless  middle  ground  wliich  for  want  of  a  better  name 
we  have  called  nationalism,  that  the  best  type  of  indi- 
viduality may  develop?  Let  it  be  said  at  once  that  those 
who  fear  socialism  as  much  as  they  do  individualism, 
and  who  fear  both  only  less  than  they  do  Mephistopheles 
himself,  are  among  the  most  strenuous  advocates  for  the 
liberties  and  dignities  of  the  individual.  Where  we 
differ  from  the  socialist  is  in  that  we  believe  in  keeping 
a  large  area  out  of  the  deadening  influences  of  a  bureau- 
cracy for  private  volition  and  initiative;  and  where  we 
differ  from  the  individualist  is  that  we  believe  that 
"character  building,"  which  is  unrecognized  by  modern 
legislators,  as  Herbert  Spencer,  the  philosophical  anarch- 
ist, laments,  may  be  better  pursued  through  rational 
forms  of  law  and  order  in  a  highly  organized  state  than 
in  the  quasi-anarchy  which  must  exist  under  Herbert 
Spencer's  watch-dog  theory  of  the  state. 

I  will  admit,  for  a  moment,  with  a  prominent  individ- 

>S4 


POLITICAL  ENVIRONMENT 


J55 


ualist  (Crozier),  that  "the  elevation  and  expansion  of 
the  individual  is  the  goal  of  civilizati(Mi,  the  true  end  of 
government  [the  italics  are  mincj  and  the  end  to  which 
nature  works." 

If  I  go  further  than  Crozier  and  say  that  there  is 
no  politics  possible  which  is  not  based  on  a  philosophy 
of  life  which,  after  all  its  labyrinthine  wanderings,  comes 
back  as  it  were  at  last  to  Abraham's  bosom  and  rests  in 
the  individual  soul,  I  hope  it  will  not  be  inferred  that 
the  individual  referred  to  is  the  detached  and  solitary 
human  monad  hermetically  sealed  in  200  pounds  o* 
acquisitive  avoirdupois.  I  am  speaking  of  an  individu- 
ality which  cannot  be  conceived  apart  from  spirituality, 
"of  the  elevation  and  extension  of  the  individual"  which 
is  "the  goal  of  civilization,  the  true  end  of  government," 
for  I  will  not  allow  an  avowed  individualist  to  outdo  me, 
whether  it  be  Crozier  or  Herbert  Spencer,  in  enlarging, 
dignifying,  and  moralizing  state  action,  making  "the  ele- 
vation and  expansion  of  the  individual"  the  true  end  of 
government,  or  "character  making"  the  most  important 
end  of  the  legislator. 

I  am  speaking  of  the  individuality  of  the  individual 
character,  which  is  inseparable  from,  and  which  is  the 
offspring  of,  sociality;  an  individuality  which  is  impos- 
sible in  solitude  or  savagery — whose  secret  has  not  been 
found  by  the  wild  man  of  Borneo.  The  simple  propo- 
sition is  that  the  most  perfect  character  is  not  developed 
by  shutting  itself  up,  but  by  opening  itself  up. 

I  am  ready  to  repeat  my  contention  that  a  rational 
theory  of  life,  without  which  there  is  no  rational  poli- 
tics, must  bring  us  to  the  bedrock  of  a  sane  theory  of 


r 


vl 


*n 


156 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


personal  character.  Hence  the  distinction  that  a  study 
in  individuality  is  far  from  a  study  in  individualism. 
The  latter  is  a  theory  of  life.  It  is  preeminently  the 
self-centered  tlieory.  Its  politics  and  ethics,  if  indeed 
politics  and  ethics  are  possible  under  individualism,  are 
those  of  philosopliic  niliilism,  for  this  is  equivalent  to 
philosophical  individualism. 

The  British  Constitutional  Association  (Introduc- 
tion to  Doctor  Saleeby's  recent  Lectures  in  Edinburgh 
on  Individualism  and  Collectivism)  states  that  "The 
Association  contends  that  the  following  quotation  from 
Herbert  Spencer's  First  Principles  proves  clearly  that 
the  path  of  progress  is  from  freedom  to  greater  freedom, 
and  that  collectivist  measures  for  curbing  the  individual 
in  the  supposed  interests  of  the  many  are  as  retrogressive 
as  they  are  unscientific  and  non-political: 

Our  political  practice  and  our  political  theory  alike  utterly  re- 
ject those  regal  prerogatives  which  once  passed  unquestioned. 
.  Thought,  our  forms  of  speech,  and  our  state  documents 
still  assert  the  subjection  of  the  citizens  to  the  ruler,  our  actual 
beliefs  and  our  daily  proceedings,  implicitly  assert  the  contrary.  ' 
•  .  .  Nor  has  the  rejection  of  primitive  political  beliefs  resulted 
only  in  transferring  the  authority  of  an  autocrat  to  a  representative 
body.    .    .    . 

How  entirely  we  have  established  the  personal  liberties  of  the 
subject  against  the  invasions  of  state-power  would  be  quickly 
demonstrated,  were  it  proposed  by  .^ct  of  Parliament  forcibly  to 
take  possession  of  the  nation,  or  of  any  class,  and  turn  its  services 
to  public  ends;  as  the  services  of  the  people  were  turned  by 
primitive  rulers.  And  should  any  statesman  suggest  a  redistribu- 
tion of  property,  such  as  was  sometimes  made  in  ancient  democratic 
communities,  he  would  be  met  by  a  thousand-tongued  denial 
of  imperial  power  over  individual  possessions.  Not  only  in  our 
day  have  these  fundamental  claims  of  the  citizen  been  thus  made 
good  against  the  state,  but  sundry  minor  claims  likewise. 

Ages  ago,   laws  regulating  dress   and   mode  of  living  fell   into 


POLITICAL  ENVIRONMENT 


157 


disuse;  and  any  attempt  to  revive  them  would  prove  the  current 
opinion  to  be,  that  such  matters  lie  beyond  the  sphere  of  legal 
control.  For  some  centuries  we  have  been  asserting  in  practice, 
and  have  now  established  in  theory,  the  right  of  every  man  to 
choose  his  own  religious  beliefs,  instead  of  receiving  such  beliefs 
on  state-authority.  Within  the  last  few  generations  we  have  in- 
augurated complete  liberty  of  speech,  in  spite  of  all  legislative 
attempts  to  suppress  or  limit  it.  .\nd  still  more  recently  we  have 
claimed  and  finally  obtained,  under  a  few  exceptional  restrictions, 
freedom  to  trade  with  whomsoever  we  please.  Thus  our  political 
beliefs  are  widely  different  from  ancient  ones,  not  only  as  to  the 
proper  depository  power  to  be  exercised  over  a  nation,  but  also 
as  to  the  extent  of  that  power. 

Not  even  here  has  the  change  ended.  Besides  the  average 
opinions  which  we  have  just  described  as  current  among  ourselves, 
there  exists  a  less  widely  diffused  opinion  going  still  further  in  the 
same  direction.  There  are  to  be  found  men  who  contend  that 
the  sphere  of  government  should  be  narrowed  even  more  than 
it  is  in  England.  They  hold  that  the  freedom  of  the  individual, 
limited  only  by  like  freedom  of  other  individuals,  is  sacred ;  and 
'  .it  the  legislature  cannot  equitably  put  further  restrictions  upon 
.1,  either  by  forbidding  any  actions  which  the  law  of  equal  freedom 
permits,  or  taking  away  any  property  save  that  required  to  pay 
the  cost  of  enMfcing  this  law  itself. 


Sir  Arthur  Clay,  Bart.,  says  of  Doctor  Saleeby's  lec- 
tures, "We  must  all  feel  grateful  to  our  lecturer  for  his 
vigorous  reassertions  of  the  value  and  truth  of  Herbert 
Spencer's  teaching,  and  we  tnust  all  feel  that  we  have  ar- 
rived at  a  point  in  social  questions  at  which  the  road 
divides  and  that  one  of  its  branches  is  the  'pathway  to 
tlie  stars,'  while  the  other  leads  us,  we  believe,  to  social 
disintegration  and  a  slow  but  sure  reversion  to  lower 
stages  of  human  condition  than  that  to  which  we  have 
attained  with  so  much  effort  and  through  such  bitter 
experience.  The  British  Constitutional  Association 
stands  at  the  parting  of  the  ways  and  urges  our  citizens 
to  choose  the  nobler  path." 


■  :h 


158 


THE  NEW  POLITJCS 


Let  us  lose  no  time  in  congratulating  the  British  Con- 
stitutional  Association  upon  this  clean  cut  distinction 
and  this  noble  advice.     Let  us  hasten  to  say  that  while 
we  might  make  some  restrictions  as  regards  the  bearing 
of  Herbert  Spencer's  teachings  up^n  this  subject,   we 
agree  wholly  that  we  are  at  the  fork  in  the  road  and 
that  as  between  the  two  paths  ahead  we  unhesitatingly 
warn  the  weary  pilgrim  to  avoid  that  which  leads  to 
"social  disintegration"  and  those  "lower  stages  of  human 
condition"  which  lie  in  the  chaos  of  individualism  in 
that  remote  past,  where  everywhere  the  egoistic  instinct 
prevailed  and  out  of  which  civilization,  which  is  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  socialization,  has  been  calling  law 
and  order  in  its  slow  but  steady  progress  in  its  "pathway 
to  the  stars." 

"Says  Herbert  Spencer,"  says  Doctor  Saleeby,  "in 
"words  which  I  make  no  apology  for  quoting  at 
length  : 

"  'Let  it  be  seen  that  the  future  of  a  nation  depends 
on  the  nature  of  its  units;  that  their  natures  are  inevi- 
tably modified  in  adaptation  to  the  condition:;  in  which 
they  are  placed ;  that  the  feelings  called  into  play  by  these 
conditions  will  strengthen,  while  those  which  have 
diminished  demands  on  them  will  dwindle. 

"  'Of  the  ends  to  be  kept  in  view  by  the  Legislator  all 
are  unimportant  compared  with  the  end  of  character 
making;  and  yet  character  making  is  an  end  wholly  un- 
recognized.'  " 

Doctor  Saleoby  closes  his  lecture  with  this  significant 
remark,  "Either  the  state  is  very  far  wrong  or  the  great 
individualist.    I  leave  you  to  choose  between  them  " 


!*! 


POLITICAL  ENVIRONMENT  159 

Let  us  admit,  confidentially,  that  it  is  the  state  this 
time.     It  is  rare,  and  indeed  one  of  the  most  unusual 
of  pleasures,  to  be  able  to  agree  with  Herbert  Spencer. 
So  much  of  Herbert  Spencer's  work  has  been  devoted  to 
the  philosophy  of  individualism  that  it  is  rather  startling 
to  find  Saul  among  the  prophets.     "Of  the  ends  to  be 
kept  in  view  by  the  legislator,"  says  Mr.  Spencer— but 
tlien  there  are  only  two  or  three  ends  to  be  kept  in  view 
by  tlie  legislator,  according  to   Herbert   Spencer,   and 
wiiat   these   are  we  might   ask  before  going   further. 
There  are  plenty  of  passages  which  outline  the  intensity 
of  his  individualism  and  his  hatred  of  state  action,  but 
none  which  outline  a  better  idea  of  his  views  than  that 
which  the  British  Constitutional  Association  presents  as 
proving  "clearly  that  the  path  of  progress  is  from  free- 
dom to  greater  freedom  and  that  collectivist  measures  for 
curbing  the  individual  in  the  supposed  interest  of  the 
many  are  as  retrogressive  as  they  are  unscientific  and 
non-political."     Here  he  contends  "that  the  sphere  of 
government  should  be  narrowed  even  more  than  it  is 
in  England  .  .  .  that  the  legislature  cannot  equitably  put 
further  restrictions   upon  it   either  by    forbidding  any 
actions  which  the  law  of  equal  freedom  permits,  or  tak- 
ing away  any  property  save  that  required  to  pay  the 
cost  of  enforcing  this  law  itself." 

Just  where  the  capital  is  coming  from  to  set  up  the 
legislator  in  the  business  of  "character  making"  under 
these  restrictions  is  a  question  that,  Herbert  Spencer  being 
dead,  is  left  for  Doctor  Saleeby,  or  Sir  Arthur  Clay,  to 
explain,  and  just  where  the  principle  of  collectivism  can 
be  made  to  appear  in  a  state  so  highly  organized  as  to 


ill 


I 


I -I 

1 


'  M 


i6o  THE  NEW  POLITICS 

assume  the  ethical  and  social  function  of  "character 
tnaking-  (and  it  is  agreed  that  this  is  "an  end  wholly 
unrecognized-)  will  hardly  be  found  in  "Social  Statics.^ 
iMrst  Principles,"  or  "Man  versus  the  State."  y  the 
way,  why  Man  versus  the  State?  Have  we  not  Herbert 
Spencer  s  whole  philosophy  in  this  title  expressing  an- 
tagonism between  corporate  and  individual  man?) 

I  repeat  that  it  is  a  rare  pleasure  to  find  the  doctrine 
stated  in  no  uncertain  terms  that  we  need  more  state 
interference  rather  than  less;  that  the  modern  legislator 
as  remiss  m  his  duty;  that  he  is  shirking  his  responsi- 
b.ht.es;  and  that  he  is  to  compete  with  parson  and  peda- 
gogue m  legislating  for  a  state  which  after  all  then 
Gnu  set  dank,  has  a  rational,  constructive,  ethical' 
spiritual,  and  purposive  mission. 

While  we  are  agreeing  with  Herbert  Spencer  let  us 
express  our  further  pleasure  in  his  doctrine  that  "the 
future  of  a  nation  depends  upon  the  nature  of  its  units- 
that  their  natures  are  inevitably  modified  in  adaptation 
to  the  conditions  in  winch  they  are  placed;  that  the  feel- 
ings called  into  play  by  these  conditions  will  strengthen 
while  those  which  have  diminished  demands  on  them 
will  dwindle. 

There  are  two  important  considerations  suggested 
here.  The  first  is  as  to  whether  a  state  of  anarchy  or  a 
state  of  law  and  order  is  the  better  environment  for  these 
human  units  or  offers  the  better  opportunities  for  "char- 
acter making"  The  second  is.  to  paraphrase  Herbert 
Spencer  s  statement,  "let  it  be  seen  that  the  future  of 
a  house  depends  upon  the  nature  of  the  brickbats." 
The  question  which  Herbert  Spencer  does  not  raise  is 


POLITICAL  ENVIRONMENT  i6i 

the  one  of  architecture.  It  is  apparent  that  if  the 
materials  are  good  the  house  will  be  both  a  beautiful 
and  comfortable  home.  The  bricks,  planks,  and  plaster 
(which  must  all  be  of  perfect  materials  in  perfect  rnits 
of  their  kind)  will  by  some  good  laissec  faire  chance  or 
other  fall  together  without  architectural  forethought  into 
a  whimsical  form  and— well— behold !  Tiie  Temple  of 
Individualism ! 

To  return  to  Spencer:  "The  feelings  called  into  play 
by  these  conditions  will  strengthen,  while  those  which 
have  diminished  demands  on  them  will  dwindle." 

We  are  told  by  the  unctuous  prophets  of  laisscz  faire 
that  competition  is  the  law  of  life  and  that  we  develop 
strength    in   competition.      This    is   quite    true.      "The 
feelings    called    into    play    by    these    conditions    will 
strengthen."    What  are  these  conditions  of  modern  com- 
petition?    What  kind  of  strength  are  we  developing? 
And  what  kind  of  weakness  are  we  eliminating  from 
our  twentieth  century  civilization?    We  are  developing 
the  kind  of  strength  which  prevails  in  our  political  and 
economic   environment.      That    environment   is   one  in 
which  the  strong  sur^'ive  P-d  the  weak  are  eliminated. 
And  we  are  developing  the  kind  of  strength  which  is 
exercised  in  the  struggle  forced  by  an  environment  in 
which  we  have  been  unfortunate  enough  to  have  been 
born  if  we  are  unfinancial  men.     The  strength  this  age 
of  free  competition  is  developing  is  that  of  financialism 
and  almost  nothing  else.    The  financiers  are  masters  of 
the  world— the  rest  of  us  are  m.ostly  hired  men.    Finan- 
cialism  is  not  only  eliminating  the  weak,  that  is,  the  un- 
financial,  but  it  is  also  framing  and  strengthening  the 


'4 


.11 


* 


1 6: 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


social  structure  so  that  it  reacts  for  the  benefit  and  for 
the  perpetuation  of  the  strong;  that  is,  when  you  sum  it 
all  up,  the  financial  instinct. 

If  there  is  any  truth  in  the  contention  that  competition 
develops  strengtii,  the  kind  of  strength  developed  is  that 
which  competes  and  that  on  the  plane  of  competition. 
Does  the  theory  of  individualism,  which  is  that  self- 
interest  is  the  motive  and  self-aggrandizement  the  aim, 
and  a  free-for-all  field  for  wolf  and  lamb  alike,  without 
recognition  of  the  principle  of  handicap,  oflfer  a  fair  and 
even  chance  for  making  those  perfect  units  which  are 
necessary  to  a  perfect  state?     Does  this  environment 
oflFer  the  legislator  his  best  field  for  "character  making"? 
Is  nor.  self-aggrandizement  the   overpowering  aim  of 
civilization  ?    Is  not  this  what  most  of  the  world  is  work- 
ing for,  competing  for?    Does  this  process  exercise  the 
altruistic  muscles  and  is  it  likely  that  great  souls  will 
be  the  fruit  of  a  hisses  f aire  competition  of  innumerable 
acquisitive  instincts?  Is  it  not  likely,  rather,  that  it  will 
result  in  a  few  more  acquisitive  monsters  and  the  apothe- 
osis of  the  multibillionaire? 

We  are  told  that  the  race  improves,  but  we  are  not 
informed  what  type  of  weakness  is  to  be  eliminated. 

Professor  Henry  Jones,  of  Glasgow,  in  a  recent  work 
(The  Working  Faith  of  the  Social  Reformer),  makes  a 
very  important  distinction.  He  says  that  both  social- 
ists and  individualists  seem  to  take  it  for  granted  that 
the  larger  area  of  state  control  or  public  ownership 
restricts  the  field  of  individual  initiative. 

"It  will  be  well  to  ask  the  question,"  he  says,  "which 
both  have  practically  overlooked.     There  is  no  doubt 


POLITICAL  ENVIRONMENT  163 

that  state  and  civic  enterprise  have  increased,  but  has 
private  enterprise  contracted?  Can  the  former  increase 
only  at  the  expense  of  the  latter?  Are  the  two  spheres 
mutually  exclusive,  or  is  it  possible  that  the  general  law 
of  the  growth  of  spiritual  subjects,  whether  individual 
or  social,  holds  here  too,  and  that  e;<ch  in  developing 
may  strengthen  its  opposite?" 

He  asks  further,  whether  with  the  modern  increase  of 
state  action  private  greed  is  disappearing  under  the  new 
regime.  He  then  asks  a  most  pertinent,  indeed  vital 
question,  "What  does  the  moralist  fear  more,  or  with 
better  reasons,  to-day  than  that  the  new  industrial  con- 
ditions will  absorb  the  mind  of  the  nation  to  a  degree 
that  imperils  the  deeper  foundations  of  its  welfare?" 

Again,  "The  contention  that  'socialism  is  already  upon 
us  IS  true  if  by  that  is  meant  that  the  method  of  organ- 
ized communal  enterprise  is  more  in  use;  but  it  is  not 
true  If  It  means  that  the  individual's  sphere  of  action,  or 
his  power  to  extract  utilities,  that  is,  wealth,  out  of  his 
material  environment,  has  been  limited.    It  is  being  over- 
looked that  the  displacement  of  the  individual  is  but  the 
first  step  in  his  reinstatement;  and  that  what  is  repre- 
sented as  the  'Coming  of  Socialism'  may,  with  equal  truth, 
be  called  the  'Coming  of  Individualism.'     The  functions 
of  the  state  and  city  on  the  one  side  and  those  of  the 
individual  on  the  other  have  grown  together." 

I  need  oflFer  no  apology  to  the  reader  in  quoting  fur- 
ther at  some  length  and  in  filling,  perhaps,  another  page 
with  the  vital  and  profound  words  of  Professor  Jones 
when  that  page  would  otherwise  be  filled  with  words  of 
my  own. 


f*f. 


h 


f- 


i64 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


It  IS  quite  true."  he  continues,  '-that  common  owner- 
ship  and  common  enterprises  turn  us  into  limited  pro- 
prietors; but  they  make  us  hmited  proprietors  of  indefi- 
nitely large  utilities." 

Just  here  I  could  have  wished  to  see  Professor  Jones 
enlarge  upon  the  point  that  there  is  almost  an  infinite 
number  of  the  "indefinitely  large  utilities"  which  we  can 
enjoy  as  much  of  under  limited  proprietorship  as  under 
exclusive  ownership.  Why  shut  the  world  out  when  our 
cup  IS  already  full  ? 

''Tiirough  the  common  use  of  public  means  to  meet 
individual  wants  the  real  possessions  and  power  of  every 
one  are  enlarged.    Break  up  the  common  use  and  the  use 
for  each  by  himself  will  be  less.    Take  the  individual  out 
of  the  organized  state,  disentangle  his  life  from  that  of 
his  neighbor's,  give  him  'the  freedom  of  the  wild  ass' 
make  him  king  of  an  empire  of  savages,  and  he  will 
be  as  naked  and  poor  and  powerless  as  the  lowest  of  his 
subjects,  except,  perhaps,   for  some  extra  plumes  and 
shells. 

"State  and  citizen  live  and  develop  only  in  and  through 
each  other.  It  is  the  unmoralized  community  and  the  unso- 
ciahzed  individual  which  follows  methods  of  resistance 
and  mutual  exclusion.     As  they  grow  in  strength-that 
IS.  m  the  power  to  conceive  wider  ends  and  to  carry  them 
out-state  and  citizen  enter  more  deeply  the  one  into  the 
other.    If  the  state  owns  the  citizen,  the  citizen  also  owns 
the   state.  ...  So    that    the   individualist    might    well 
desire  more  'state  interference'  and  the  socialist  more 
private  rights'  for  the  best  means  of  producing  strong 
men  is  a  highly  organized  state,  and  the  only  way  of 


POLITICAL  ENVIRONMENT  ,6.^ 

l.rodiKing  a  strong  state  is  to  make  the  citizens  own  so 
much,  care  for  so  much,  be  responsible  for  so  much 
that  each  can  say  without  injury  to  Iiis  neighbor,  The 
state  IS  mine.'  " 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  Herbert  Spencer  stands 
w.th  the  nat.onahsts  in  his  assertion  that  there  is  no  more 
""pcrtant  duty  of  the  legislator  than  that  of  "character 
"■ak.ng"  (and  I  confess  that  I  agree  with  him  wholly 
and  that  the  proposition  is  fundamental  under  whatever 
.sm  It  may  be  classified),  politics  may  be  considered  as 
a  question  of  environment. 

It  is  not  claimed  by  the  New  Politics  that  legislation 
wdl  recreate  human  character  or  reform  the  world,  or 
that  tlie  state,  centralized  or  decentralized,  can  ever  be- 
come what  Bentham  characterized  as  a  "mill  to  grind 
rogues  honest"    (Theodore  Roosevelt,   Dynamic   Geog- 
rapher. Henry  Frowde.  by  the  present  writer).  The  vain 
regret  is  as  old  as  the  memory  of  Antisthenes.  who  im- 
plored the  Senate  of  his  time  to  make  horses  of  asses 
by  oftcial  vote.  The  new  den^ocracy  of  nationalism  claims 
for  Itself  that  it  offers  the  forms  of  a  rational  association 
ma  sphere  of  the  state,  enlarged  and  moralized,  wliich 
will  constitute  a  political  environment  where  everything 
.n  the  individual  that  is  best  and  worth  preserving  wili 
be  encouraged  instead  of  thwarted,  and  where  the  kind- 
.er  impulses  of  the  human  heart,  the  most  of  which  are 
I'e.ng  choked  in  the  maelstrom  of  individualism,  shall  have 
at  least  even  chances   for  existence.     If  the  state  will 
offer  a  political  environment  which  will  make  the  public 
well-being  possible,  the  public  will  look  out   for  itself 
The  pathetic  message  of  history  is  that  the  people  have 


am 


i66 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


never  had  a  chance.    What  they  want  is  a  chance.    An 
eth.cal  democracy  would  offer  them  a  chance. 

Plato  has  said  somewhere  that  you  will  never  have 
a  perfect  race  of  men  until  you  have  a  perfect  environ- 
ment.  and  what  Spencer  says  is  equally  true,  that  you 
cannot  have  a  perfect  state  without  perfect  units 

The  contribution  of  the  Science  of  Biology  to  the  study 
of  environment  will  throw  a  white  light  on  the  subject  if 
followed  out.  but  I  cannot  do  that  here.  For  it  is  certain 
and.  I  may  say,  it  has  passed  into  the  common  and  estab- 
hshed  knowledge  of  tiie  world,  that  a  given  organism 
wdl  thnve  better  in  one  environmenv.  and  the  fact  of  the 
better  or  the  worse  type  will  be  determined  by  the  better 
or  the  worse  environment. 

The  modern  city,  for  e.xample,  which  kills  its  entire 
population  m  every  four  generations,  is  constantly  being 
recuperated  from  the  cou.Ury.  However,  it  is  producing 
several  new  types  of  human  being,  new  to  the  world 
without  doing  credit  to  it.  The  institution  of  financial- 
ism  IS  producing  its  types,  and  developing  them  on  logi- 
cal hnes.  straight  toward  their  prototvpes.  the  dog  the 
cat.  and  jackal  families,  with  the  element  of  intellect 
added  to  the  primordial  instincts  of  their  possible  far- 
away ancestors. 

Now  and  then  a  dusty  wayside  throws  out  a  flower 
escaped  from  the  trampling  of  many  hoofs  or  feet  bui 
ordmarily  "flowers  grow  in  the  gardens  of  those  who 
love  them,"  and  who  understand  them,  and  who  under- 
stand the  environment  in  which  a  flower  thrives 

Once  for  all  let  it  be  admitted  that  no  sane  theory  will 
allow  the  world  to  lose  the  freedom  of  the  individual 


POLITICAL  ENVIRONMENT  ,67 

provided  by  freedom  we  do  not  mean  lawlessness.  The 
chief  argument  against  all  sonalism.  from  the  social- 
isms of  the  muck-rake  to  the  socialisms  of  dreamland,  is 
that  they  indeed  point  to  a  "coming  slavery"— slavery 
to  the  mob.  The  health  of  nations  lies  in  a  sound  and 
free  individualit} 

We  ire  c    ning  to  question  the  place  hitherto  given 
to  liberty  as  life's  chief  good  in  and  of  itself,  and  to 
suspect  that  liberty  instead  of  being  an  end  is  a  means 
to  an  end.    But  more  than  this,  whether  it  is  an  end  or 
means  to  the  end.  it  is  to  be  found  by  indirection.    It  is 
to  be  found  by  seeking  something  else.  Individual  liberty 
does  not  lie  toward  individualism.    The  growing  recog- 
nition of  the  principle  of  the  enlargement  of  liberty 
through  the  principle  of  association  may  be  used  to  bring 
up  again,  even  though  but  for  a  glance  before  we  pass 
on,  ♦he  question  of  this  matter  of  liberty— I  mea  ,  politi- 
cal liberty. 

By  far  the  ablest  presentation  of  the  opposite  view 
of  this  subject  is  that  of  Mill  on  "Liberty,"  j  ablished  in 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  basing  his  argu- 
ment not  on  abstract  "natural  right,"  but  on  expediency 
But  John  Stuart  Mill,  before  he  died,  recognized  very 
clearly  that  even   the  appeal   to  utility   required  con- 
clusions which  swept  the  support  from  individualism, 
and  one  of  the  most  charming  chapters  in  the  history 
of  human  thought  is  that  of  this  "Saint  of  Rational- 
ism," as  Gladstone  called  him,   at   last  admitting  the 
futility  of  individualism  as  a  philosophv  of  liic. 

Had  not  Bentham,  his  master,  built  his  svstem  on  the 
Epicurean  doctrine  that  "pleasure  is  the  chief  good."  and 


f 


fit 


i()8 


THK  NKW  rOLITlLS 


had  not  ncnlhatn  expressly  sai,l.  "[■pict-us  was  the  only 
one  ani.mjj  the  a.KieiiU  who  bad  the  merit  of  having 
known  tlic  true  source  of  niorahty"? 

In  his  charniin{,'  autobio^^raphy  Mill  describes  a  crisis 
in  his  life.     He  ha.l  been  reading  of  a  heroic  action  in 

Marnmnters   "Memoires. Ihey  led  me  to  adopt  a 

new  tlieory  of  life.-  be  says.  "Those  only  are  happy 
(I  thouglit)  wiio  bave  their  min.ls  fixed  on  some  other 
object  than  their  own  happiness;  on  the  happiness  of 
others,  or  the  improvement  of  mankind,  even  on  some 
art  or  pursuit  followed  not  as  a  means  but  itself  an  ideal 
end.  Aiming  thus  at  something  else  thev  find  happiness 
by  the  way.  The  only  chance  is  to  treat  not  happiness 
but  some  end  external  to  it  as  the  purpose  of  life.  .  .  . 
This  theory  now  became  the  basis  of  my  philosophy  of 

It  is  easy  to  see  where  this  entire  abandonment  of 
mdividualism  must  necessarily  lead  him.  He  states  that 
his  first  idea  of  the  solidarity  of  the  race  and  the  unity 
of  history  was  given  him  by  reading  the  political  writ- 
mgs  of  the  St.  Simonian  School  of  France.  "I  was 
greatly  struck  with  the  connected  view  which  thev  for  the 
first  time  presented  to  me  of  the  natural  order  of  human 
progress."  Speaking  of  the  "third  period"  of  his  life 
he  writes  of  his  wife  and  himself  together,  and  of  hi.s 
opinions  having  "gained  in  breadth." 

"While  we  repudiated  with  the  greatest  energy  that 
tyranny  of  society  over  the  individual  which  most  social- 
ist systems  are  supposed  to  involve,  we  yet  looked  for- 
ward to  a  time  when  society  will  no  longer  be  divided 
mto  the  idle  and  industrious;  when  the  rule  that  they 


POLITICAL  KN'VIRONMENT  ,(^ 

who  d.)  not  work  shall  not  eat   will  be  applied  not  to 
paupers  only,  but  impartially  to  all;  when  the  provision 
of  the  produce  of  lab.ir.   instead   of  depending   in   so 
great  a  degree  as  it  now  does  on  the  acci.Ient  of  birth 
will  be  made  by  concert  on  an  acknowledged  principle  of 
justice;  and   when  it   will  no  longer  either  be,   or  be 
thought  to  be.  iniiK>ssibIe  for  human  beings  to  exert  them- 
selves strenuously  in  procuring  benefits  which  are  not 
to  be  exclusively  their  own  but  to  be  shared  with  the 
society  they  belong  to.    The  social  problem  of  the  future 
we  cons.dere.1  to  be  how  to  unite  the  greatest  individual 
I-berty  of  action  with  a  common  ownership  in  the  raw 
material  of  the  globe  and  an  equal  participation  of  all  in 
the  combined  benefits  of  labor."  "We  were  now  much  less 
democrats  than  I  had   been  ...  an  ideal  of  ultimate 
improvement  went   far  beyond  Democracy,  and  would 
class   us  decidedly   under  the   general   designation   of 
Socialists."' 

What  happened  in  the  life  of  John  Stuart  Mill  is  too 
slowly  happening  to  this  age.    We  began  where  he  began 
and  we  are  experiencing  a  development  similar  to  his' 
We  are  learning  that  liberty  is  something  other  than 
license,  and  that  it  is  to  be  gained  by  a  utilization  of  the 
principle  of  association  and  not  of  the  principle  of  strife 
We  are  beginning  to  question  the  dogmas  of  an  earlier 
age,  that  pleasure  is  the  chief  end  of  man  and  that  un- 
restricted liberty  is  the  chief  means  of  its  attainment. 
We  are,  however,  more  than  ever  convinced  that  the 
principle  of  liberty  is  something  to  be  held  at  all  hazards 
and  that  in  all  our  theoretical  wanderings  we  must  never 
lose  sight  of  individual  liberty  as  the  beginning  of  prog- 


fii 


k 


170 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


ress ;  but  that  individual  liberty  is  the  product  of  law  and 
order.     "To  obey  God  is  freedom"  (Seneca). 

It  is  profoundly  true  that  there  is  no  'reedom  possible 
to  the  man  who  has  not  become  master  of  himself,  his 
whims  and  instincts — and  there  is  but  one  road  to 
this — through  discipline.  There  is  a  discipline  of  free- 
dom and  there  is  a  discipline  of  law.  "None  can  love 
freedom  heartily,"  says  Milton,  "but  good  men:  the  rest 
love  not  freedom  but  license,  which  never  hath  more 
scope  or  more  indulgence  than  under  tyiants." 

"Moral  liberation  and  political  freedom  must  advance 
together,"  says  Hegel,  "the  process  must  demand  some 
vast  space  of  time  for  its  full  realization;  but  it  is  the 
law  of  the  world's  progress  and  the  Teutonic  nations  are 
destined  to  carry  it  into  effect.  The  Reformation  was 
an  indispensable  preparation  for  this  great  work.  .  .  . 
The  failure  of  the  French  Revolution  to  realize  liberty 
was  because  it  aimed  at  external  liberation  without  the 
indispensable  condition  of  moral  freedom.  .  .  .  The 
progress  of  freedom  can  never  be  aided  by  a  revolution 
that  has  not  been  preceded  by  a  religious  reformation." 

"Liberalism  as  an  abstraction,  emanating  from  France, 
traversed  tiie  Roman  world;  but  religious  slavery  held 
that  world  in  the  fetters  of  political  servitude.  For  it 
is  a  false  principle  that  the  fetter  which  binds  Right  and 
Freedom  can  be  broken  without  tiie  emancipation  of 
conscience — that  there  can  be  a  Revolution  witlvout  a 
Reformation.  .  .  .  Material  superiority  in  power  can 
achiez'c  no  enduring  results;  Napoleon  could  not  Coerce 
Spain  into  freedom  any  more  than  Philip  II  could  force 
Holland  into  slaverv  " 


POLITICAL  ENVIRONMENT 


171 


rdsworth  wrote  on  the  margin  of  an  article  which 
dei.ounced  him  as  a  democrat :  "I  am  a  lover  of  liberty, 
but  am  aware  that  liberty  cannot  exist  apart  from  order." 

Even  the  late  Lord  Acton,  profoundly  individualistic 
as  he  was,  said  once  in  spite  of  his  polemic  against 
nationality,  that  neither  liberty  nor  authority  is  con- 
ceivable except  in  a  well  ordered  society  and  is  remote 
from  either  anarchy  or  tyranny.  "Constitutional 
Government,"  says  a  biographer,  "was  for  him  the  sole 
eternal  truth  in  politics,  the  rare  but  the  only  genuine 
guardian  of  freedom." 

"Everything  in  nature,"  says  Kant,  "acts  according 
to  laws :  the  distinction  of  a  rational  being  is  the  faculty 
of  acting  according  to  the  consciousness  of  laws." 

The  free  man,  therefore,  is  the  man  who  does  not  what 
instinct  demands  but  what  reason  requires,  since  reason 
is  as  much  or  more  of  the  real  nature  of  man  than 
instinct. 

Wherever  human  liberty  has  appeared  in  this  world 
it  has  quickly  disappeared  again  unless  it  has  been  guar- 
anteed by  law  and  order.  Human  rights  are  ordained 
by  civilized  society  and  human  beings  have  never  any- 
where enjoyed  those  riglits  except  through  law  and  order 
as  constituted  by  civilized  society.  Emerson  speaks  of 
what  he  calls  "this  law  of  laws,"  by  'vhich  "the  universe 
is  made  safe  and  habitable." 

My  contention  is  that  human  liberty  (and  human  wel- 
fare as  well)  is  promoted  and  safeguarded  by  neither 
anarchv  nor  socialism,  but  in  a  rational  social  order 
swung  in  a  proper  equilibrium  between  local  self-govern- 
ment and  national  self-government. 


1  JE 

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list 


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THE  NEW  POLITICS 


Law  and  order  are  not  the  destruction  but  the  safe- 
guard of  individual  liberty,  and  a  rational  state  is  the 
only  environment  in  which  the  flower  may  grow.  But 
the  state  is  founded  in  the  idea  of  reciprocity.  So  is 
the  golden  rule.  Social  ethics  and  individual  ethics 
have  the  same  foundation:  therefore  there  is  no  diversity 
of  real  interest  and  no  real  dividing  line  between  the 
individual  and  the  social  self.  Liberty  is  not  the  fruit 
of  the  solitary  life.  For  he  who  isolates  his  mind  and 
heart  as  nature  has  isolated  his  body,  is  a  freak  or  a 
criminal,  for,  as  Aristotle  said  long  ago,  "he  must  be  a 
beast  or  a  god  who  would  live  alone." 


warn 


ih> 


CHAPTER  VI 

KOUNUATIONS    OF    NATIONALISM 

The  clue  to  the  making  uf  nineteenth  century 
thought  lias  been  clearly  given  hy  the  late  Professor 
i:(l\var(l  Caird:  "The  idea  of  organic  unity,  ami,  as 
implied  in  that,  the  idea  of  development."  "Goethe  and 
1  Icgel  in  Germany :  Comte  in  France.  Darwin  and  Spen- 
cer in  England  .  .  .  and  a  multitude  of  others  in  every 
department  of  study,  have  been  inspired  by  the  ideas 
of  organism  and  development.  .  .  .  These  ideas  have 
l)etn  the  marked  ideas  of  the  century,  the  conscious  or 
unconscious  stimulus  of  its  best  thought" ;  and  they  are 
working  "in  the  direction  of  a  deeper  and  more  compre- 
liensive  irenicon  .  .  .  than  has  been  attained  in  any 
previous  stage  of  the  history  of  philosophy." 

"The  peculiar  nineteenth  century  movement  begins 
with  a  reassertion  of  the  universal  as  against  the  indi- 
vidual." "Philosophy  was  no  longer  content  to  regard 
the  whole  as  the  sum  of  the  parts,  but  could  look  upon 
the  distinction  of  the  parts  only  as  a  differentiation  of 
the  whole"  (Progress  of  the  Century,  Harper,  1901). 
Professor  Caird  further  develops  the  thesis  that  the  best 
and  latest  thing  in  philosophic  evolution  is  the  spirit 
which  does  not  oppose  the  universal  to  the  individual,  but 
synthesizes  both.  It  is  so  with  us.  We  want  all  the 
truth  there  is  in  individualism.  We  want  all  the  truth 
there  is  in  socialism.  It  must  be  a  synthesis,  which  is 
neither   individualisni    nor   socialism.      Politically   what 

173 


Ml 


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?  '■ 


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warn 


174 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


shall  we  call  it?    Nationalism?    It  matters  less  what  we 
call  it  than  what  we  make  it. 

Caird  undertook  a  criticism  of  Comte's  Social  Phi- 
losophy (which  might  be  said  to  be  in  a  sense  based  on 
the  proposition  that  there  is  no  philosophy  of  the  indi- 
vidual apart  from  a  philosophy  of  humanity)  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  proposition  tiiat  "there  can  be  no 
religion  of  humanity  which  is  not  also  a  religion  of 
God."  "And  this  means,"  continues  Caird.  "that  it  is 
logically  imi)ossible  to  go  beyond  the  merely  individual- 
istic point  of  view  with  whicli  Comte  started,  except  on 
theassumi)tion  that  the  intdligaicc  of  man  is,  or  involves, 
a  universal  principle  of  knowledge." 

Until  our  appeal  to  reason  goes  back  of  the  individual 
opinion  and  f^nds  reality  in  the  corp<.rate  intelligence  of 
man— an  intelligence  which  "is,  or  involves,  a  universal 
principle  of  knowledge"— we  are  lost  in  the  confusions  of 
illimitable  and  irredeemable  wastes.     There  is  no  possi- 
bility of  a  conception  of  an  ethical  state,  on  the  basis  of 
atomism,  for  the  democracy  of  individualism  is  destitute 
of  an  architectonic  idea,  as  well  as  of  that  cohesive  prin- 
ciple which  alone  makes  a  state  possible:  viz..  the  nexus 
of  good   will   in  a   framework  of  the  common   good. 
There  is  no  common  good  possible  where  tiie  nexus  is 
enmity  and  not  good  will.     An  aggregation  of  scram- 
bling,  grasping  selfishnesses  does   not   make   a   rational 
'^tate.     We  have  seen  it  illustrated  only  too  well  if  we 
have  given  heed  to  the  testimony  of  history. 

"If  history  can  tell  us  little  of  the  past  and  nothing 
of  the  future,"  says  Froude.  "why  waste  our  time  over 
so  barren  a  study?    History  is  a  voice  forever  sounding 


FOUNDATIONS  OF  NATIONALISM       175 


across  the  centuries  the  laws  of  right  and  wrong,  Right, 
tlic  sacrifice  of  self  to  good;  Wrong,  the  sacrifice  of 
[,'uod  to  self.  .  .  .  Justice  and  truth  alone  endure  and 
live.  Injustice  and  falsehood  may  be  long  lived,  but 
Doomsday  conies  at  last  to  them  in  French  Revolutions 
and  other  terrible  ways." 

If  we  study  carefully  those  movements  of  thought 
underneath  the  growth  of  nationalism  in  the  United 
States  we  shall  find,  although  it  has  been  for  the  most 
part  unrecognized,  that  it  has  been  fostered  by  a  sense 
of  the  inadequacy  of  anarchy  as  a  theory  of  government, 
and  by  the  conviction  that  the  centripetal  force  of  society, 
tliat  which  holds  it  together,  that  which  gives  it  unity, 
is  good  will,  not  hatred.  Good  will  must  be  the  basis 
of  true  democracy.  The  basis  of  the  democracy  of  indi- 
vidualism is  the  principle  of  strife.  If  this  then  be 
democracy;  if  democracy  is  essentially  strife,  and  if  its 
direction  is  toward  and  not  away  from  individualism,  by 
all  means  let  us  have  something  other  than  democracy, 
fur  there  is  no  ethical  meaning  in  any  theory  of  inor- 
ganic juxtaposition  of  unrelated  competing  political 
units.  If  there  is  to  be  a  realignment  of  parties  on  a 
philosophical  which  is  to  say  a  rational,  basis,  it  will  be 
somewhere  along  this  line.  To  the  democracy  of  indi- 
vidualism which  is  the  party  of  the  past  will  gravitate 
ever)'  vested  privilege,  every  sacred  graft,  every  holy 
\ehicle  of  plunder,  every  sainted  boss — the  entire  system 
revolving  around  the  central  sphere  of  selfish  clainoring 
for  liberty  and  rights;  i.  e.,  immunity.  To  the  party  of 
the  future  to  which  our  young  men  are  already  coming, 
those  also  will  c^/me  who  believe  in  the  state  as  some- 


m 


&.1 


176 


THE  Ni:\V  POLITICS 


tiling  better  than  an  instrument  to  serve  the  stronger  in- 
dividualistic interest :  who  conceive  of  the  nation  as  an 
entity  toward  which  we  must  discharge  our  duties  if 
we  claim  our  rigiits ;  who  will  try  to  substitute  for  that 
ugly,  greedy  casli  gourmandism  wliich  forms  the  nexus  of 
our  present  predatory  society,  tlie  kindlier,  saner  element 
of  good  will.  We  have  progressed  far  enough  in  this  di- 
rection, so  that  few  of  us,  like  the  Shah  of  Persia  at  the 
Prince  of  Wales's  tlinncr,  would  he  so  enamored  of 
ciuumbers  that  we  would  empty  the  whole  disli  in  our 
shirt  bosom,  and  yet  we  will  do  it  with  dollars  in  the 
oftke  and  on  the  street.  The  princii)le  has  been  estab- 
lished in  polite  society  that  we  need  neither  hurry  nor 
gorge  at  the  table  of  a  friend,  for  the  pantry  is 
full  Liiit  -"business  is  business."  though  it  be  neither 
moral,  nor  honorable,  nor  decent,  nor  civilized. 

Since  I'.picurus  the  ethical  system  of  individualism  has 
been  pretty  dearly  stated  by  pliilosophers  and  pretty 
clearly  worked  (Hit  in  modern  history:  and  the  ethics  of 
individualism  offers  an  inadequate  foundation  for  a 
rational  anil  social  state.  By  this  time  we  know  both  its 
motive  and  its  program.     We  know  its  results. 

Stated  with  brevity  and  completeness,  its  motive  is 
self-interest. 

Its  program  is  self-aggrandizement. 

Its  result  is  anarchy. 

If  certain  of  those  who  have  called  themselves  indi- 
vidualists have  labored  for  the  welf.Tre  of  mankind  (and 
there  have  been  large  numbers),  it  has  been  only  when 
they  have  forsaken  the  motives  of  their  creed  and 
have  transgressed  tiie  confines  of  altmi.sm;  for  individ- 


FOUNDATIONS  OF  NATIONALISM       177 

ualism  is  the  system  "which  makes  self-gratification  or 
pleasure  the  sole  object  of  choice"  and  defines  morality 
as  "the  intelligent  pursuit  of  that  which  instinct  compels 
us  to  pursue." 

The  universal  cry  of  individualism  is  for  the  liberty 
of  the  individual  "so  far  as  it  does  not  encroach  upon  the 
like  liberty  of  his  fellows."  That  sounds  fair.  But  I 
for  one  have  not  the  least  idea  of  just  exactly  what  it 
means.  It  is  one  of  those  dangerous  phrases  which  have 
served  long  apprenticeship  as  onomatopceian  catch- 
words. It  seems  to  have  some  of  the  magic  consolation 
of  the  word  Mesopotamia;  but  as  to  this  concrete  matter 
of  actually  encroaching  upon  a  like  liberty  of  one's  fel- 
lows! Here  is  the  crux.  We  are  assuming  (if  we  are 
Individualists)  that  if  we  have  our  liberty  we  will  not 
encroach  upon  the  liberty  of  our  fellows.  In  the 
multiplicity  of  human  relations  this  opens  up  infinities 
in  the  universe  innumerable.  A  very  desirable  status, 
truly,  if  every  individualist  enjoys  his  liberty  excepting 
in  so  far  as  it  may  encroach  on  the  like  liberty  of  his 
fellcws.  But  I  arn  not  quite  sure  that  I  have  ever  read 
in  Iiistory  any  juch  status  actualized  in  human  society. 
A  pretty  millennial  dream,  truly!  But  I  am  not  quite 
sure,  as  I  look  out  upon  the  weltering  throat-cutting  race 
of  men,  that  that  millennial  dawn  is  likely  to  be  realized 
until  after  I  have  been  an  angel  for  a  million  years.  Have 
we  besotted  ourselves  in  the  fancy  that  the  world  is 
Christian  and  that  the  inhabitants  thereof  will  act  up 
to  the  golden  rule  and  that  no  one  will  voluntarily  en- 
croach upon  a  "like  liberty"  of  his  fellow  even  though 
he  has  the  power?     Even  though  he  has  the  power! 


,11 


i;8 


THK  Nl£VV  POLITICS 


The  more  cunning  have  the  jHjwer.  Those  who  have 
the  tools  have  the  power.  Those  who  have  the  knife 
by  the  handle  have  the  power.  Those  who  know  the 
game  have  the  power.  What  about  the  others?  The 
weak,  the  innocent,  tlie  ignorant !  What  of  those  who 
hold  the  knife  by  the  blade?  Are  we  to  assume  equality? 
Then  we  assume  a  lie.  It  is  the  plainest  kind  of  a  sham 
and  humbug,  this  pretension  of  equality,  for  there  is 
no  equality.  Until  we  are  all  equal  we  cannot  compete 
on  equal  terms  Free  competition  is  the  competition  of 
equals,  if  it  is  fair  competition.  Therefore,  there  is  no 
fair  free  competition — no  fair  free  trade.  Therefore 
we  need  a  state.  Therefore  the  state  must  draw  its  lines 
and  say,  "Thus  far  and  no  further."  The  state  must 
interfere  and  it  is  the  state  which  must  say,  "Thou  shalt 
not  encroach  upon  a  like  liberty  of  their  fellows."  This 
is  the  individualist  state  at  its  best. 

The  democracy  of  nationalism  means  more.  It  differs 
from  the  democracy  of  individualism  in  that  it  includes 
duties  as  well  as  rights.  It  includes  more — the  power 
and  dignity  and  etliical  mission  of  the  state  as  something 
more  than  a  business  proposition.  The  democracy  of 
individualism  a  hundred  years  ago,  as  well  as  to-day. 
considered  "enlightened  self-interest"  a  sufficient  pre- 
cipitant of  economic  order  and  a  sufficient  account  of 
political  good.  Its  point  of  view  can  be  summed  up  in 
the  words  of  Wordsworth,  who  hit  it  off  in  "Rob  Roy's 
Grave" : 


The  (food  old  rule,  the  simple  plan, 

Th.it   they   should  take   who   have   the   power, 
.And  they  ^hould  k«ep  who  can. 


rOUN'DATIONS  OF  NATIONALISM       179 


And  the  point  of  view  was  clearly  shown  in  the 
astonished  remark  of  the  fourth  Duke  of  Newcastle  in 
tlie  House  of  Lords,  December  3,  1S30,  "May  I  not  do 
what  I  like  with  my  own?" 

The  spirit  which  inspires  the  democracy  of  national- 
ism should  be  more  like  that  of  the  pftcd  saj^e  of  the 
Greeks.  When  Socrates  was  implored  by  friends  to 
escape  from  prison  he  replie<l.  "I  have  no  rifjiits  con- 
trary to  Athens  and  her  laws,"  and  then  he  drank  the 
lieinlock. 

While  nationality  has  at  all  times  had  a  profound  influ- 
ence u\K)n  the  political  afTairs  of  men,  the  idea  may  be 
said  to  be  in  a  renewed  sense  a  re-creation  of  the  nine- 
teentli  century.  The  century  of  revolution  preceded 
tliat  of  nation-making  because  the  era  of  individualism 
l)receded  that  of  organization  and  .socialization.  The 
fearful  Ics.sons  of  revolution  have  taught  tiic  world  that 
liberty  is  not  freedom,  that  tliere  is  no  freedom  without 
kiw  and  order,  that  there  is  no  law  and  order  without 
sovereignty,  no  sovereignty  without  cohcsiveness — or- 
ganization, socialization:  no  socialization  without  com- 
mon institutions,  common  interests,  a  common  life,  the 
liindiiig  idea  of  whicli  is  good  will,  not  enmity,  the  result 
of  which  is  harmony,  not  strife.  In  tliis  common  life 
lies  nationality. 

\\c  liave  too  often  lost  sight  of  the  real  logical  bear- 
ing of  tlie  two  c)ld  Roman  conceptions  res  publico  and 
solus  puhlica.  The  former  connotes  the  common  interest 
and  the  common  life.  The  latter,  which  is  based  on  tlie 
other,  refers  to  the  common  good.  The  two  in  covering 
the  common  relations  and  conditions  of  the  common  life 


'ii 


r 


iSo 


THK  NKW  rOMTICS 


for  the  end  of  the  common  go<xl  cover  pretty  well  the 
groutuJ  of  nationality. 

Salus  fioptili  suprema  lex  esto!  A  constitution  is 
ordained  "to  promote  the  jjeneral  welfare."* 

Professor  Giiyot  has  oflfcrcd  a  suggestive  observation 
(Earth  and  Man,  p.  83 ).  He  states  that  in  every  order 
of  existence  he  finds  three  successive  states  identically 
repeated;  "a  cliaos  when  all  is  confounded  together;  a 
development  wliere  all  is  separating;  a  unity  where  all 
is  binding  itself  together  and  organizing." 

The  modern  era  of  reffjrmation  and  revolution  is  one 
in  which  a  disintegrating  philo.sophy  is  breaking  up  the 
chaos  of  I'cudal  and  Catholic  Europe.  Already  now  the 
forces  of  organization  are  at  work  toward  a  new  unity. 
This  unity  will  be  that  of  a  rational  and  orderly  system 
instead  of  that  of  a  disintegrating  and  chaotic  mass.  Out 
of  the  old  chaos  the  outlines  of  the  great  ideas  underlying 
the  unity  of  the  future  are  beginning  to  appear.  The 
better  elements  of  human  intelligence  are  already  turn- 
ing away  from  the  gospel  of  helter-skelter,  and  are  work- 


'  Note  i, — "In  all  nations  of  a  nianljr  spirit,"  says  Bluntschli 
(Theory  of  State,  p.  290),  "there  are  thousands  of  men  who,  when 
the  state  is  in  danger  or  need,  will  undertake  heavy  burdens  and 
will  endanger  both  the  peace  of  their  families  and  their  own  lives. 
This  spirit  of  sclf-sacriticc  can  only  be  explained  on  the  supposi- 
tion that  these  men  pri'fcr  the  safety  and  welfare  of  their  state 
and  nation  to  their  own.  The  deeds  of  ancient  heroes  would  be 
the  folly  of  idle  fanaticism  if  the  state  were  only  a  means  of 
serving  individual  interests,  if  the  collective  life  of  the  nation 
had  not  a  higher  value  than  the  life  of  many  individuals.  In  the 
great  dangers  and  crises  of  the  national  life  it  becomes  clear  to 
men  that  the  state  is  something  better  and  higher  than  a  mutual 
as.surancc  society." 


FOUNDATIONS  OF  NATIONALISM       i8i 

injjfuit  tlie  idea  of  orjjanization  and  scientific  government 
toward  the  socialization  of  humanity  and  the  bettennent 
of  tlie  conditions  of  humanity.  "As  Progress,"  says 
Mazzini,  "is  the  great  intellectual  discovery  of  the  mo<l- 
iTii  world,  so  association  is  its  new-found  instrument." 

Louis  Blanc  says  almost  the  same  thing  in  another 
way  in  the  opening  of  the  Design  and  Plans  of  his  His- 
tory of  the  French  Revolution :  "Three  great  principles 
divide  the  world  and  history  among  themselves:  Author- 
ity— Individualism — Fraternity.  .  .  .  The  principle  of 
individualism  is  that  which,  t.iking  man  out  of  society, 
renders  him  the  sole  judge  of  that  which  surrounds  him 
and  of  himself,  gives  him  an  exalted  sentiment  of  his 
rights  without  pointing  out  to  him  his  duties,  abandons 
him  to  his  own  strength,  and,  for  government,  proclaims 
tlie  let-alone  system.  The  principle  of  fraternity  is  that 
which,  regarding  the  members  of  the  great  family  as 
homogeneous,  tends  one  day  to  organize  societies,  the 
work  of  man,  upon  the  model  of  the  human  body,  the 
w<jrk  of  God.  ...  Of  those  three  principles,  the  first 
engenders  oppression  by  stifling  personality;  the  second 
leads  to  oppression  through  anarchy;  the  third  alone, 
by  means  of  harmony,  gives  birth  to  liberty." 

"  'Liberty !'  said  Luther ;  'liberty !'  repeated  in  chorus 
the  philosophers  of  the  eighteenth  century;  and  it  is  a 
word,  liberty,  which  in  our  day  is  written  on  the  banners 
of  civilization.  It  has  been  misunderstood  and  falsified, 
and  since  Luther  this  misunderstanding,  this  falsehood 
have  filled  history ;  it  was  individualism  which  happened, 
not  liberty." 

It  would  seem  that  world  politics  is  following  the  di- 


mA 


w 


MICROCOPY    RESOIUTION    TEST   CHART 

ANSI  and  ISO  TEST  CHART  No    2 


1.0 


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THE  NEW  POLITICS 


rection  suggested  by  Guyot  from  one  unity  through  dis- 
integration to  another  unity — or,  perhaps,  rather  from 
uniformity  to  unity.  Perhaps  it  could  be  stated  more 
correctly  by  saying  that  through  the  disintegration 
of  individualism,  political  society  is  being  prepared  for 
transformation  from  a  mechanical  uniformity  to  a 
rational  and  organic  unity. 

The  thing  to  be  remembered  is  this,  so  far  as  this 
study  is  concerned,  that  the  ideas  of  disintegration  are 
not  and  cannot  be  the  basis  of  a  permanent  and  con- 
structive politics;  that  the  vehicle  of  transition  from 
one  age  to  another  and  a  different  age  cannot  offer  the 
permanent   foundations  of  a  rational  state. 

In  looking  forward  toward  unity  in  society,  or  toward 
"that  more  perfect  union"  in  our  national  politics,  we 
must  not  confuse  unity  with  uniformity  nor  trust  too 
much  in  unity  per  sc.  We  must  beware  of  phrases  as 
of  shibboleths.  For  example,  a  recent  writer  (W.  E. 
Smyth,  Constructive  Democracy)  quotes,  approving  the 
words  of  Mr.  B.  Fay  Mills:  "Whatever  tends  toward 
unity  is  true;  whatever  tends  toward  diversity  is  false. 
Whatever  tends  toward  harmony  is  right;  whatever 
tends  toward  discord  is  wrong." 

These  words  offer  an  excellent  example  of  an  exqui- 
sitely misleading  uncritical  statement  of  a  half  truth. 
The  half  truth  ignores  the  only  truth  the  individualist 
admits.  The  statement  ignores  the  existence  of  a  unity 
which  is  false,  a  diversity  which  is  true.  It  is  here  the 
socialist  misses  his  trail.  He  does  not  recognize  a  proper 
sphere  of  individual  liberty — initiative — effort.  The  in- 
dividualist, on  the  other  hand,  denies  the  conscious  and 


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V; 


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FOUNDATIONS  OF  NATIONALISM       183 

orderly  movement  of  the  human  monad  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  social  center — the  social  reason  and  will. 
There  is  truth  in  both.  One  cannot  exclude  or  vitiate 
the  other.  For  instance,  I  must  recognize  the  validity  of 
tlie  earth's  movement  on  its  axis  as  well  as  its  movement 
around  the  sun. 

There  is  a  sphere  in  which,  as  it  were,  the  individual 
must  turn  on  his  own  axis.  There  is  another  in  which 
he  swings  with  reference  to  a  universal  outside  scheme 
as  he  spins  through  space.  Socialism  would  seem  to  hold 
for  a  harmony  of  dependence — the  individualist  for  in- 
dependence. But  there  is  a  harmony — the  true  one — 
interdependence,  "hich  gives  stability  to  the  solar  system 
— safety  to  the  stars  above  us  as  well  as  to  us  midgets 
below.    This  is  what  our  dual  system  means. 

To  say  that  "whatever  tends  toward  unity  is  true," 
etc.,  is  to  say  "I  believe  in  peace  at  any  price."  But 
there  is  a  harmony  which  is  the  type  of  death.  There  is 
a  diversity  which  is  the  very  condition  of  life.  Some  one 
once  recognized  the  core  of  what  I  am  contending  for 
when  he  said,  "I  am  for  peace  at  any  price — even  at  the 
cost  of  war." 

The  half  truth  is  what  the  individualist  found  in  the 
eighteenth  century  and  it  made  him  a  revolutionist.  He 
forgot  that  war  is  not  the  normal  state  of  mankind. 
Indeed,  he  declared  that  a  state  of  war  is  the  normal 
state  of  mankind.  Free  trade,  hisses  faire — unrestricted 
competition — these  were  some  of  the  watchwords  of 
the  gospel  of  strife.  Later  on,  he  took  on  a  new  con- 
ception with  new  watchwords  which  he  called  the 
"struggle  for  existence"  and  the  "survival  of  the  fittest." 


1 84 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


He  might  have  said,  ''Whatever  tends  toward  discord  is 
right.     Whatever  tends  toward  harmony  is  wrong." 

The  other  half  truth  is  what  the  socialist,  in  his  reac- 
tion from  the  other  creed,  is  proclaiming  toward  a 
human  state,  uiidiversified  and  harmonious,  perhaps,  but 
dead — as  the  Dead  Sea.  But  the  evolutionist  will  tell 
us  that  humanity's  healthiest  and  best  li<  >  somewhere 
between  unity  and  diversity — or  rather — much  rather — 
includes  both — something  neither  eternal  struggle  nor 
eternal  peace;  neither  never-endir,g  storm  nor  calm.  The 
diurnal  and  annual  motion  of  the  earth  are  botii  necessary 
in  the  economy  of  the  universe. 

And  so  the  perfect  state  is  made  up  of  those  individ- 
uals whose  right  is  guaranteed  to  both  individual  ini- 
tiative and  social  well-being.  The  perfect  state  will 
provide  for  the  more  perfect  development  of  the  indi- 
viduality of  man  through  and  in  harmony  with  the 
growth  of  liis  social  self. 


There  is  a  very  fine  passage  in  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting books  published  in  this  generation,  namely,  the 
Posthumous  Lectures  and  Essays  on  Natural  Theology 
and  Ethics  by  the  late  Professor  William  Wallace  of 
Oxford : 

Man  has  become  more  and  more  convinced  that  the  Divine  must 
dwell  among  us.  that  it  must  be  realized  on  earth  as  in  Heaven, 
and  realized  not  in  the  heart  merely,  but  in  tangible  and  visible 
forms.  Or,  to  put  it  more  definitely,  the  enthusiast  whose  glance 
passes  through  the  dividing  shams  to  the  underlying  unity  is 
not  content  to  build  that  long  lost  heritage  of  humanity  in  the 
spirit  only;  he  will  not  tamely  submit  to  the  actual  fragmentariness 
of  life,  content,  if  so  be  he  can  still  enjoy  the  comforting  sense 
of  its  ideal  wholeness.     He  protests  against  the  breaking  up  into 


FOUNDATIONS  OF  NATIONALISM       185 


fractions  of  casual,  unsystematic,  inharmonious  character  of  the 
minor  groupings,  which  actually  prevail:  he  shows  how  they  are 
not  duly  dovetailed  into  each  other,  and  that  they  do  not  tend  to 
converge  and  form  a  collective  universe  of  life;  he  condemns  the 
inequalities  which  by  slow  accumulations  have  shut  many  men 
out  of  the  common  sunlight  of  humanity  and  forced  thern  either 
to  cower  despairingly  under  falling  hovels  or  to  entrench  them- 
selves defiantly  in  palatial  prisons.  He  demands  that  the  social 
basis  of  human  life  and  action  shall  be  realized,  not  as  a  mere 
genera',  supervision  and  police  of  occasional  interference,  not  ^s 
a  system  of  laws  which,  when  definite  acts  against  the  common 
weal  have  been  traced  to  their  author,  shall  restore  the  balance 
and  status  quo  ante,  but  realized  as  a  reasonable  organization  which 
watches  so  carefully,  so  closely,  so  wisely,  that  every  part  of  the 
social  machine  shall  never  fail  to  keep  in  mind  its  social  duty, 
that  no  part  shall  be  other  than  an  individualized  organ  or  mis- 
sionary of  the  whole,  that  no  stagnation,  no  block,  no  purely  special 
or  local  movement  shall  arise  to  mar  the  uniformity  of  action. 

But  to  have  a  state  like  this  it  must  be  based  on  some- 
thing wholly  dissimilar  and  antagonistic  to  individualism. 
There  can  be  no  ethical  politics  without  a  state  framed 
in  the  interest  of  the  public  good.  There  can  be  no 
political  recognition  of  the  public  good  without  a  theory 
of  life  which  offers  also  a  theory  of  the  "public"  as 
something  other  than  a  mass  of  unrelated  atoms. 

What  ont  wants  is  that  conservative  middle  ground 
which  will  insure  the  full  and  free  development  of  both 
.social  and  individual  self,  if  there  is  a  distinction  between 
them.  "Sacred  to  us  is  the  individual,"  says  Mazzini. 
"Sacred  is  society.  We  do  not  mean  to  destroy  the  former 
for  the  latter  and  found  a  collective  tyranny,  nor  do  we 
mean  to  admit  the  rights  of  the  individual  independ- 
ently of  society  and  consign  ourselves  to  perpetual 
anarchy.  We  want  to  balance  the  operations  of  liberty 
and  association  in  a  noble  harmony."  "What  we  want, 
what  the  people  want,  what  the  age  is  crying  for,  that  it 


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THE  NEW  POLITICS 


may  find  an  issue  from  this  slough  of  selfishness  and 
doubt  and  negation,  is  a  faith,  a  faith  in  which  our  souls 
may  cease  to  err  in  search  of  individual  ends,  may  march 
together  in  the  knowledge  of  one  origin,  one  law,  one 
goal." 

The  Democracy  of  Nationalism  involves  elements  un- 
recognized by  the  Democracy  of  Individualism.  It  in- 
volves certain  fundamental  relationships  which  are  ethi- 
cal— framed  in  the  forms  of  its  institutions  for  the  com- 
mon good.  This  constitutes  Nationalism.  If  power  and 
administration  are  kept  close  to  the  people  they  are 
democratic.  Corporate  self-government  for  the  cor- 
porate good  as  opposed  to  political  laissec  faire  is  some- 
thing like  the  Democracy  of  Nationalism.  This  form 
of  a  state  is  something  new  in  the  world.  Democracy 
has  always  been  the  political  aspect  of  individualism.  It 
has  been  anarchic.  The  spirit  of  it  is  what  Diderot  called 
the  spirit  of  the  eighteenth  century — liberty.  But  then 
that  was  only  one  conception  of  liberty — license — and  this 
was  what  Louis  Blanc  said  it  was :  "It  was  individualism 
which  happened,  not  liberty." 

But  the  state  must  not  stop  here.  It  is  quite  impossible 
for  one  to  say  ofF-hand  what  are  the  "duties"  of  a  state, 
but  that  the  state  is  founded  on  principles  which  make 
duties  necessary  is  unquestioned,  for  the  state  has  obli- 
gations as  well  as  rights.  The  state  is  the  institutional- 
ization of  the  common  reason  and  life  for  the  common 
good. 

Thus  prayed  Cleanthes,  the  Stoic:  "Lead  thou  me, 
Zeus,  and  thou  world's  Law  whithersoever  I  am  ap- 
pointed to  go ;  for  I  will  follow  unreluctant." 


FOUNDATIONS  OF  NATIONALISM       187 

This  is  a  statidpoint  lofty  enough  for  world  politics 
or  vvorld  religion. 
One  turns  to  the  insignificant  individualist  with  sorrow. 

Thou  art  sick  of  self-love,  Malvolio, 
And  taste  with  a  distempered  appetite. 

There  is  a  better  standpoint  for  one  who  is  not  afraid 
to  look  life  and  destiny  in  the  face,  who  wants  to  know 
the  dignity  of  man,  and  that  is  the  standpoint  which 
Professor  Caird  used  so  often  in  his  Oxford  lectures: 
"Sub  specie  atcrnitatis." 


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THE  DEMOCRACY  OF  NATIONALISM 


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CHAPTER  I 


THE  OLD   ISSUE 

For  the  first  time  since  the  Civil  War,  and  for  the  third 
time  in  the  history  of  the  RepubUc,  a  fundamental  idea 
has  raised  itself  to  the  surface  of  our  paltry  political 
life  to  remind  us  that  after  all  there  is  something  besides 
individual  interests  in  American  Politics. 

It  is  the  same  principle  in  all  three  instances— involv- 
ing the  same  struggle-the  principle  of  nationalism  pro- 
testing against  that  of  particularism,  law  and  order  op- 
posing the  abuses  of  anarchy  and  inefficiency  in  our 
national  affairs.    Once  more  we  are  back  on  fundamen- 
tal ground.    Once  more  the  issue  is  raised  between  state 
and  nation-whether  the  part  is  greater  than  the  whole. 
Two  recent  movements,  the  anti-Trust  and  Conser^'a- 
tion  movements,  have  disclosed  the  fact  that  there  are 
certain  large  and  important  areas  for  which  there  is  no 
law;  over  which  there  is  no  sovereignty.    The  self-con- 
stituted  and   self-perpetuating   institution   of   financial 
privilege  enthroned  in  Wall  Street,  with  an  unpardonable 
rapacity  and  with  unprecedented  insolence,  has  bulwarked 
its  pretensions  in  the  old  claims  of  state  sovereignty. 
The  rise  of  interstate  corporations  incorporated  within 
and  responsible  to  a  single  state;  the  impossibility  of  one 
state  to  catch,  punish  or  control  the  financial  law  breaker 
with  another  state  boundary  so  near;  the  absorption  by 
these  corporations  of  so  vast  an  area  of  the  national 
resources  and  the  national  domain,  without  recourse  or 

19' 


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192 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


possibility  of  punishment,  has  raised  a  problem  of  im- 
mediate vital  moment  to  the  American  people. 

To  use  a  legal  paradox,  we  have  discovered  a  vast 
area  of  crime  over  wliich  there  is  no  law — the  interstices, 
as  it  were,  between  the  states. 

The  first  question  as  to  tiiis  area  of  anarchy  is  under 
whose  sovereignty  does  it  lie,  that  of  state  or  nation? 

It  is  on  exactly  this  ground  that  we  must  fight  out 
the  whole  progressive  mcnement. 

If  it  is  to  be  left  lo  the  state  it  will  be  found  tliat  in 
a  sense  it  does  not  fall  within  the  states  but  l.etween  the 
states;  therefore  by  the  states  the  question  will  never 
be  solved  at  all. 

Shall  the  nation  then  or  shall  it  not  under  the  Consti- 
tution annex  those  areas  of  anarchy  between  state  and 
state,  and  between  state  and  nation  over  which  there  is 
now  no  sovereignty  at  all?  Wiierc  shall  we  look  for 
sovereignty  where  now  no  sovereignty  exists? 

The  question  is  not  one  as  to  where  lies  absolute  sov- 
ereignty. This  does  not  exist  in  America.  The  indi- 
vidual qua  individual  has  his  inviolable  rights  and 
responsibilities.  As  a  member  of  a  municipality  he  has 
others.  As  a  citizen  of  a  state  he  has  others  still.  In 
those  relations  in  which  he  is  bound  to  a  life  larger  than 
town,  county  or  state  he  is  and  must  be  held  amenable 
to  a  national  fundamental  a  id  sovereign  law  on  the  simple 
theory  that  we  are  a  nation  and  not  a  bunch  of  states. 

There  is  a  party  of  reaction  which  has  decreed  that 
there  shall  be  no  further  development  of  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States.  It  is  the  party  which  almost  pre- 
vented the  founding  of  the  nation,  and  failing,  sought  to 


THE  OLD  ISSUE 


193 


destroy  it;  who  still  want  to  return  to  the  principles  of 
'76  and  ileny  the  principles  of  '87.  Under  the  pleasing 
fiction  of  "strict  construction  of  delegated  powers"  they 
would  destroy  the  fundamental  principles  of  democratic 
.government,  viz.,  direct  representation  by  the  people,  re- 
c>.tablish  the  principle  of  the  Confederation,  viz.,  repre- 
sentation through  forty-eight  distinct  and  separate 
sovereignties,  called  states.  They  would  have  us  believe 
tliat  our  fundamental  law  is  an  imperfect  and  inadequate 
national  instrument  closed  and  sealed  when  tlie  fountains 
of  inspiration  were  dried  up  over  a  hundred  years  ago. 

Was  it  not  Comte  wiio  declared  if  God  was  nearer 
tlie  world  in  ages  past  than  He  is  to-day.  He  is  not  the 
(jod  of  the  I*"uture?  And  can  we  not  say  if  the  people 
were  sovereign  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  are  not  sov- 
ereign to-day.  we  shall  be  slaves  to-morrow? 

The  State  Right  idea  is  that  the  Constitution  is  an 
instrument  possessing  only  such  powers  as  have  been 
surrendered  by  thirteen  or  by  forty-eight  states  to  meet  the 
requirements  of  the  eighteenth  century  ideals;  and  that 
these  powers  are  only  such  as  are  enumerated  specifically 
and  construed  literally,  even  though  they  be  inadequate 
to  meet  the  necessities  of  our  present  national  organiza- 
tion, to  say  nothing  of  those  unknown  issues  which  lie 
hidden  away  in  a  destiny  unrevealed.  Their  contention 
is  that  all  our  new  problems  must  be  met  piecemeal  and 
solved  in  fractions. 

It  lay  beyond  the  range  of  any  human  foresight  less 
than  omniscient  for  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  to 
make  pro^  'sion  for  such  new  problems  as  have  presented 
themselves  to  this  more  complex  age,  to  say  nothing  of 


194 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


those  which  still  lie  undeveloped,  and  even  unguessed, 
in  future  times.  It  was  quite  impossible  for  them  to  see, 
for  example,  the  growth  of  modern  corporations  and 
trusts  and  to  make  constitutional  provision  for  their 
control.  They  make  no  allowance  for  future  annexation 
of  territory  or  for  any  kind  of  public  improvement.  No 
specific  po\,ers  were  given  to  Congress  to  deal  with  these 
or  any  such  questions.  How  could  the  framers  of  the 
Constit  ition.  who  never  saw  a  railroad,  a  steamboat,  a 
telegraph,  a  telephone,  an  air  sliip,  a  steel  warship,  or  a 
machine  gun,  frame  an  unalterable,  inflexible,  and  ada- 
mantine instrument  as  efficient  for  the  expansions  and 
complexities  of  coming  centuries  as  for  their  own  pI  -nple 
bucolic  world?  It  is  beginning  to  seem  necessary  to 
some  of  us  that  in  building  for  a  far  away  future,  if 
our  forefathers  have  not  made  provision  for  the  devel- 
opment of  such  an  organism  as  may  survive  the  tt-ts  of 
experience,  that  it  is  quite  time  we  were  doing  the  thing 
ourselves.  It  has  been  borne  in  upon  us  pretty  clearly 
not  only  that  there  are  concerns  which  affect  all  Ameri- 
cans and  which  are  national  concerns,  but  that  they  are 
outside  the  reach  of  the  states;  and  even  if  they  are  not 
they  cannot  be  successfully  treated  piecemeal  as,  for 
example,  from  forty-eight  points  of  view,  and  each  point 
of  view  necessarily  diflFerent  from  all  the  others. 

The  impossibility  of  ever  getting  forty-eight  different 
legislatures  to  deal  unanimously  and  simultaneously  with 
common  vital  national  concerns  has  brought  the  Ameri- 
can people  to  face  the  necessity  of  enlarging  the  sphere 
of  nationcility  as  a  measure  of  self-defense. 

How  are  we  and  how  are  future  generations  to  deal 


THE  OLD  ISSUE 


195 


with  national  problems,  needs,  necessities,  not  specifically 
provided  for  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States? 

I  am  not  raising  the  question  of  local  problems,  but  of 
those  which  are  national  or  lie  outside  the  boundaries 
of  the  interests  of  a  single  state. 

The  whole  question  was  raised  definitely  at  the  White 
House  Conference  of  Governors  in  1908.  Mr.  W.  J. 
Bryan  is  reported  to  have  said,  "There  is  no  twilight 
zone  between  the  state  and  nation  in  which  exploiting 
interests  can  take  refuge  from  both."  Instead,  he  fills 
this  "twilight  zone"  with  too  rosy  coruscations  of  his 
own  amiable  and  optimistic  temperament. 

As  to  this  neutral  zone  (which  is  a  term,  by  the  way, 
I  like  better  than  twilight  zone),  with  which  earnest 
administrators  have  had  so  much  trouble  of  late,  and 
where  their  search  parties  have  discovered  so  many  foul- 
smelling  lairs  of  pillage  and  immunity,  there  are  many 
who  declare  with  Mr.  Bryan  that  here  we  need  no  con- 
stitution; because  some  day  it  will  be  governed  in  forty- 
eight  sections  by  a  fragmentary  altruism  and  fractional 
patriotism.  "Earnest  men,"  continues  Mr.  Bryan,  "with 
an  unselfish  purpose  and  controlled  only  for  the  public 
good  will  be  able  to  agree  upon  legislation  which  will 
not  only  preserve  for  the  future  the  inheritance  which 
we  have  received  from  a  bountiful  Providence,  but  pre- 
serve it  in  such  a  way  as  to  avoid  the  dangers  of  central- 
ization"— just  as  we  have  been  doing,  perhaps,  in  the 
dispersion  of  ninety  per  cent  of  the  entire  wealth  of  the 
United  States  among  a  hundred  men  known  as  Wall 
Street. 
"I  am  jealous  of  any  encroachment  upon  the  rights  of 


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THE  NEW  POIJTICS 


the  state,  believing  that  the  states  are  indestructible  as 
the  Union  is  indissoluble." 

For  my  part,  I  believe  it  to  be  sounder  democracy  to 
be  jealous  of  any  encroachment  upon  the  rights  of  man 
before  the  rights  of  the  state,  and  that  it  is  not  a  ques- 
tion as  to  the  states  being  indestructible  or  the  Union 
indissoluble;  it  is  a  question  of  finding  a  sovereign  for 
anarchy.    It  is  a  question  of  bringing  justice  to  national 
and  colossal  offenders  whom  the  states  do  not  and  can- 
not  reach.     Mr.  Bryan's  vague  and  sonorous  phrases 
mean    nothing   under   analysis   but   a   reafifirmation    of 
hisses  fairc  and  chance  and  drift,  a  denial  of  reason  and 
foresight,  that  what  a  few  of  the  best  minds  have  been 
trying  to  accomplish  for  a  century  and  a  quarter  will 
some  day  happen  by  itself  and  all  of  a  heap — when  forty- 
eight  coordinated  state  legislatures  of  "earnest  men  with 
an  tmselfish  purpose  and  controlled  only  for  the  public 
good"  will  contemporaneously  and  simultaneously  get 
together  and  "agree  upon  legislation"  which  will  "pre- 
serve for  the  future  the  inheritance  we  have  received 
from    a    bountiful    Providence."      When     forty-eight 
popular  majorities  agree  upon  one  method  of  preserving 
the  inheritance  we  have  received  from  a  bountiful  Provi- 
dence, we  may  believe  that  the  sky  will  fall  and  that  we 
shall  all  catch  larks. 

When  an  individualist  like  Mr.  Bryan  protests  against 
centralization  in  this  sense  he  is  protesting  against  or- 
ganization. Such  a  protest  tacitly  admits  that  some  one 
has  neglected  to  show  him  the  difference  between  cen- 
tralization and  organization;  and,  furthermore,  that  he 
is  oblivious  to  the  one  and  only  danger  of  centralization 


THE  OLD  ISSUE 


197 


in  this  country  at  this  time  and  that  is  the  centralization 
of  capital,  which  is  the  direct  and  net  result  of  the 
democracy  of  individualism;  the  outcome  of  a  compe- 
tition so  free  and  untrammeled  by  national  oversight 
and  restraint  as  to  have  resulted  in  less  than  .ocxj6  of 
our  population  owning  25  per  cent  of  our  national  f'omain 
and  one  citizen  owning  one  eleventh  of  the  nation. 

There  are  many  views  as  to  how  and  when  we  became 
a  nation.  The  Constitutional  Convention  did  not — could 
not — declare  for  nationality.  The  view  of  such  a  man  as 
President  Walker  is  not  convincing  that  it  all  came  about 
within  the  first  three  or  four  decades  of  our  history ;  nor 
is  the  purely  legal  one  of  Story  and  Webster  and  Curtis ; 
nor  is  that  later  view  which  dates  nationality  from  the 
Civil  War. 

The  nation  is  still  in  the  making.  The  fundamental 
question  of  nationality  seems  to  be  still  an  issue.  We 
have  not  achieved  our  nationality  so  long  as  there  are 
national  injustices  and  outrages  and  indecencies  unpun- 
ishable; so  long  as  there  are  usurpations  and  exploita- 
tions immune;  so  long  as  there  are  offenses  which  are 
not  named  as  crimes  only  because  tliere  is  no  sov- 
ereignty to  raise  over  them  the  aegis  of  the  law.  We 
have  not  worked  out  our  nationality  so  long  as  there  is 
any  national  interest  over  which  the  national,  funda- 
mental law  is  not  supreme.  Therefore,  I  maintain,  that 
the  adoption  of  a  constitution  can  be  considered  as  no 
more  than  the  beginning  of  a  nation.  It  did  not  create 
a  completed  nation. 

The  literal  text  of  the  Constitution,  which  one  of  the 


:  %■ 

i 

i 

■ri. 
i 

^1- 


198  THE  NEW  POLITICS 

f  ramers  said  at  the  time  of  its  adoption,  no  one  expected 
would  be  held  for  a  hundred  years,  was  a  compromise 
with  the  advocates  of  individualism,  state  rights,  and  the 
Articles  of  Confederation.  This  is  not  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  to-day.  No  one  will  pretend  that 
anything  connected  with  an  institution  is  the  same  to-day 
as  it  was  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  years  ago.  The 
adoption  of  the  Constitution  was  the  beginning.  We 
have  been  adopting  and  adapting  ever  since. 

Who  has  the  hardihood  to  claim  the  Constitution  of 
191 X  is  the  same  as  the  Constitution  of  17B7?    I^  '^  »* 
not  the  same  why  has  it  been  changed?     And  how 
has  it  been  changed?     Why,   indeed,   if   not   to  meet 
the   intelligent   demands    of    an   intelligent   people    ex- 
panding to  a  larger  life,   meeting  new   problems   and 
crises  arising  from  new  conditions?    Is  not  the  incon- 
gruity of  the  position  apparent  even  to  a  strict  con- 
structionist who  adheres  to  the  letter  of  the  dead  instead 
of  the  spirit  of  the  living,  while  his  master,  Jefferson,  the 
chief  of  all  strict  constructionists,  advocated  a  brand 
new  constitution  every  nineteen  years?    Not  the  loosest 
constructionist  would  to-day  dare  advocate  so  radical 
a  policy  as  Jefiferson's  (unless  he  were  a  strict  construc- 
tionist and  individualist— that  is  to  say,  one  who  has  no 
political  principle  regulating  what  he  thinks  and  says 

and  does). 

Our  fundamental  law  is  in  evolution.  Indeed,  every 
living  thing  is  in  evolution.  Therefore,  nationality  is 
still  incomplete.  It  is  not  a  question  of  what  the  text  of 
the  Constitution  explicitly  declares.  It  is  not  a  question 
as  to  whether  the  states  were  sovereign  or  not.     The 


THE  OLD  ISSUE 


199 


time  has  come  when  we  must  take  a  larger  view  of  our- 
selves  and  a  broader  interpretation  of  our  nationality. 

Either  the  Constitution  is  a  fixed  and  limited  instru- 
,nent,  incapable  of  expansion  or  growth,  or  it  is  a  living, 
growing  instrument  of  a  living,  growing  nation.     If  it 
Ts  the  former,  another  half  century  will  find  us  with  the 
most  inadequate  constitution  in  the  civilized  world.     If 
it  is  otherwise,  America  may  achieve  its  manifest  destiny 
and  future  centuries  will  remain  unshackled  to  an  age 
which  did  not  dare  proclaim  nationality  in  the  new  con- 
stitution; an  age  which  nearly  lost  its  constitution  over 
such  trivial  pretexts  as  conflict  o'  interests  between  tlie 
oystermen  of  Marj'land  and  \'irginia.     The  only  ade- 
(juate  theory  of  our  national  government  is  that  it  began 
in  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  which  it  was  impos- 
sible to  frame  at  one  time  for  all  time ;  to  meet  the  new 
problems  of  the  new  ages  which  lay  out  before  a  nation 
just  beginning  to  be,  and  already  destined  to  be  great. 
The  population  of  the  whole  nation  then  was  not  as  large 
as  that  now  of  Greater  New  York.     None  of  the  revo- 
lutions had  been  wrought  which  were  about  to  transform 
the  world  in  that  scientific  century  which  in  the  material 
welfare  of  man  was  to  accomplish  far  more  than  had  all 
the  ages  since  Lot's  wife  got  out  of  Sodom. 

If  the  fathers  had  a  right  to  question  their  institutions, 
we  have  a  right  to  question  ours.  If  they  had  a  right  to 
protest  against  the  anarchy  of  State  Rights  and  repudi- 
ate the  .-\rticles  of  Confederation,  we  have  a  right  to  pro- 
test against  the  anarchy  of  modern  times  and  construe 
a  constitution— or  make  one— which  is  large  enough  for 
the  needs  of  a  hundred  million  people.     We  have  the 


r! 


Mm 


% 


200 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


right  to  construe  our  fundamental  law  on  established  and 
accepted  principles  of  construction,  to  suit  the  peremp- 
tory necessities  of  a  growing  nation.  The  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  is  a  document  no  more  sacred  to-day 
than  were  the  Articles  of  Confederation  before  it ;  except 
as  the  former  instrument  better  serves  the  welfare  of  the 
American  people.  The  Constitution  was  not  made  as  an 
idol.  It  is  not  something  to  be  worshipped  in  and  of 
itself.  It  is  an  instrument  to  "promote  the  general  wel- 
fare." Some  of  us  have  forgotten  this.  We  have  rested 
our  case  with  the  "fathers" — what  they  taught — what 
they  wrought.  Their  children  who  have  grown  gray — 
and  theirs  who  are  growing  gray — these  do  not  count. 
Those  who  have  taken  this  view  conceive  a  nation  as  a 
mechanism,  not  an  organism  of  which  no  provision  can 
be  made  for  growth. 

By  the  way  of  parenthesis,  it  may  be  said  here,  that 
one  of  tlie  most  undemocratic  of  modem  tendencies  is 
the  disposition  of  our  people  to  assail  those  who  have 
dared  to  criticize  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 
There  seems  to  be  an  unwritten  law  of  lesc-majcste.  It 
has  been  supposed  hitherto  that  our  Government,  like  all 
Gaul  and  some  other  trinities,  is  divided  into  three  parts, 
the  Legislative,  Executive,  and  Judiciary,  but  some  would 
add— "the  greatest  of  the.se"  is  the  Judiciary.  We  might 
a.  m't  that.  But  when  the  people  assail  the  President  and 
Congress — even  the  Speaker — the  way  they  do  without 
recourse;  now  and  then,  when  some  one  dares  to  ques- 
tion the  judiciary,  he  is  belabored  to  the  land's  ends,  it 
is  quite  the  moment  for  asking  a  serious  question  or  two. 
Nothing  that  I  know  underneath  the  throne  of  God  is 


THIi  OLD  ISSUE 


201 


immune  from  honest  criticism.  Some  have  even  dared 
that.  They  have  criticized  the  Bible  out  of  our  educa- 
tional system — they  have  criticized  the  Church  to  the 
background— everything  has  had  its  whirl  in  the  crucible 
but  the  throne  of  heaven  and  the  Supreme  Court — a 
fruitful  thought  when  you  know  one  may  be  occupied 
by  Almighty  God  and  the  other  by  a  corporation  lawyer. 
Nevertheless,  our  Supreme  Court  is  the  best  thing  in 
America.  Even  then,  when  any  human  institution  be- 
comes too  holy  to  be  criticized,  it  is  time  for  that  insti- 
tution to  be  abolished  as  dangerous  to  the  liberties  of 
the  people. 

We  are  only  a  century  old.  How  trite  but  how  true 
that  this  is  but  a  moment  in  the  aeons  the  North  Ameri- 
can Continent  is  to  play  in  the  history  of  the  human  race. 
From  Washington  to  Taft— the  span  of  two  fingers  out 
of  infinite  reaches  of  time!  Who  would  mold 
gjves  for  the  expounding  future?  We  are  not  what  we 
were  when  Columbus  discovered  America— when  the 
English  fought  the  French — when  the  Colonials  fought 
the  English— when  Americans  fought  each  other.  We 
are  what  we  are  this  and  no  other  day.  We  cannot 
shackle  the  wrists  of  posterity  nor  shall  our  ancestors 
shackle  ours.  Our  nation  is  not  a  machine.  It  is  a 
growing  organism.  This  growing  organism  is  the  ulti- 
mate factor,  not  the  instrument  of  its  welfare.  This 
instrument  must  bean  elastic  instrument,  or,  like  Goethe's 
vase,  it  will  be  broken  by  the  acorn  planted  in  it. 


f  , 


I 


CHAPTER  II 


NATIONALITY  AND  THE   PL'BLIC    DOMAIN 


One  of  the  most  important  departures  from  tlie  par- 
ticularism of  tlie  fathers  was  that  when  llie  question  was 
raised  by  Maryland  of  a  national  domain  outside  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  state  and  under  that  of  Congress. 
The  importance  of  this  was  not  realized  at  the  time,  but 
it  was  a  revolutionary  principle.  Maryland  asked  Con- 
gress to  determine  the  western  boundaries  of  such  states 
as  claimed  to  extend  to  tiie  Mississippi  or  the  South  Sea. 
Some  of  the  states,  like  Virginia,  claimed  enormous  areas 
lying  west  of  them  and  more  or  less  indeterminate. 
Maryland  had  no  such  area. 

Gradually  there  grew  to  be  a  district,  whicli  had  been 
ceded  by  the  states  to  the  National  Government.  This 
became  a  national  domain.  Not  only  that  but  it  became 
a  national  domain  out  of  which  states  miglit  be  made. 
It  was  actually  proposed  to  create  new  states  out  of 
this  national  domain.  Not  only  tliis  but  it  was  proposed 
that  the  National  Goveminent  create  these  states.  Not 
only  this,  but  the  National  Government,  whicli  owned  a 
national  domain,  actually  created  states  out  of  this 
domain. 

The  acquisition  of  Louisiana  was  a  revolutionary  pro- 
cedure undertaken  by  men  fresh  from  the  throes  of 
revolution.  The  United  States  had  a  Constitution  and 
was  governed  by  men  who  never  ceased  their  protesta- 
tions of  adhesion  to  the  principle  of  a  strict  construction 


203 


THE  PUBLIC  DOMAIN 


203 


tliereof.  Let,  however,  the  exigency  be  of  sufficient  im- 
jiortaiice,  let  the  need  be  sufficiently  great,  let  the  domi- 
nant party  sufficiently  desire  it,  and  the  Constitution 
must  be  construed  to  be  equal  to  the  exigency  and  need. 
So  it  was. 

After  the  purchase  of  Louisiana,  there  was  an  era  of 
commercial  and  political  good  feeling  during  which  the 
coonskin  cap  brigade  was  pouring  over  the  Alleghanies 
and  settling  the  Far  West  between  the  mountains  and 
the  Mississippi.  This  great  "unconstitutional"  act  of 
Jefferson's  was  a  brilliant  stroke  of  constructive  state- 
craft, but  which,  by  the  way,  was  not  his  at  all,  but  the 
act  of  Livingstone  and  Monroe. 

It  may  be  doubted  if  Jefferson  ever  had  a  purpose 
or  a  hope  toward  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana  until  the 
act  was  done.  His  threatening  letter  to  Napoleon,  which 
certainly  had  some  influence,  was  for  the  purpose  of 
keeping  Louisiana  in  the  hands  of  the  weaker  power. 
The  episode  is  interesting.  As  Hosmer  remarks.  "When 
Bonaparte  was  tlie  one  to  he  frightened  and  Talleyrand 
tlie  one  to  be  hoodwinked,  the  'naivete'  of  the  proceed- 
ing becomes  rather  ludicrous." 

When  ail  the  nation  but  New  England  had  acquiesced 
in  the  act  of  the  Republican  non-Democratic  Administra- 
tion in  acquiring  Louisiana,  her  representatives  argued 
against  it  and  threw  themselves  across  the  path  of 
national  progress  in  much  the  same  way  that  the  State 
Rights  party  has  done  to  this  day.  If  the  strict  construc- 
tion party  in  power,  which  was  defending  an  act  under 
their  theory  as  unconstitutional,  had  followed  the  lead 
of  the  liberal  constructionists,  who  were  combating  their 


li' 


204 


THF':  NEW  POLITICS 


own  theories  simply  because  tliey  had  become  the  policies 
of  the  opposing  party;  and  if  tlic  contention  of  Federal 
New  ICngland  had  prevailed  that  the  treaty-making  power 
does  not  extend  to  incorporating  a  foreign  people  or  a 
foreign  soil ;  and  that  the  words  "new  states  may  be  ad- 
mitted by  Congress  into  the  Union"  meant  only  such 
states  as  were  carved  out  of  the  territory  of  the  United 
States  at  tlie  time  the  Union  was  founded,  it  would  have 
meant  that  we  had  a  Constitution  which  had  forever 
fixed  our  territorial  boundaries,  and  that  we  could  never 
have  had  another  foot  of  territory  under  the  existing 
Constitution. 

It  was  a  case  of  constniction  by  the  Executive  and 
ratification  by  the  people's  representatives  and  by  them- 
selves— with  the  exception  of  New  England. 

The  case  of  the  State  Right  survivals  who  would  keep 
the  Constitution  within  the  iron  bands  of  the  letter  and 
not  the  spirit  of  the  fundamental  law  to-day  is  very  much 
the  same  old  issue,  the  same  old  spirit,  the  same  old  story. 
But  as  then,  the  expanding  nation  is  answering  its  own 
questions  by  continuing  to  grow.  When  tliese  questions 
are  no  longer  met  by  the  spirit  of  nationality  it  will  be 
when  and  because  we  have  ceased  to  grow.  If  the 
Jeffersonians  could  justify  their  action  in  1803  on  the 
ground  of  "sovereign  right"  and  for  the  promotion  of 
the  general  welfare,  why  cannot  we  to-day? 

All  the  feeble  echoes  of  tearing  the  Constitution  to 
tatters — all  the  anirnadversions  on  Jefferson,  who  was 
declared  by  New  England  to  be  administering  a  despot- 
ism in  the  shoes  of  Carlos  IV — with  a  passion,  too,  that 
got  New  England  ready  for  secession — is  a  familiar  clap- 


THK  PUBLIC  DOMAIN 


205 


trap  to-<lay  which  imposes  on  no  historian  and  no 
scholar,  but  is  still  efficient  with  the  masses  possessed  of 
the  Jacobin  mind. 

Had  the  New  Rngland  State  Right  Federalists  had 
their  way  in  Jefferson's  administration,  with  the  armies 
of  France  in  Ilayti  and  Mexico,  this  might  have  been  a 
I-rench  Continent  ere  this.  If  the  stricter  theory  must 
be  maintained  and  if  we  have  a  Constitution  which  leaves 
the  national  government  powerless  in  national  problems 
undreamed  of  by  the  founders,  and  if  those  new  and 
unexpected  national  problems  must  be  solved  in  frac- 
tions by  states,  and  piecemeal  by  forty-eight  legislatures, 
then,  indeed,  we  have  not  the  constitutional  liberty  of 
which  we  boasted,  but  are  saddled  with  an  "old  man  of 
the  sea,"  and  face  an  intolerable  situation  created  by  a 
monstrous  blunder,  which  no  growing  nation  can  sur- 
vive. 

Every  party,  and  one  might  almost  say  every  Am> 
can  politician,  has  been  both  nationalist  and  broad  con- 
structionist when  it  has  suited  his  policies  or  purposes. 
No  President  has  been  more  revolutionary  than  was 
Jefferson  in  deliberately  performing  an  unconstitutional 
act ;  i.  e.,  from  the  point  of  view  he  had  always  held  and 
then  held  and  admitted  that  he  held.  But  the  country 
wanted  Louisiana — constitution  or  no  constitution — and 
Jefferson  bought  it — constitution  01  no  constitution. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Administrative,  the  Legisla- 
tive, and  the  Judiciary  of  this  government  have  all  had 
a  hand  in  the  expansion  of  the  meaning  of  the  Consti- 
tution and  the  powers  of  nationality,  and  their  acts  have 
been  acquiesced  in  by  the  whole  American  people,  who 


t '.;- 


-'o6 


THE  Ni:\V  POLITICS 


;ii 


can  make  and  unmake  governments — and  construe  con- 
stitutions— and  no  one  can  question  their  right  to  do 
so  without  throwing  doubt  upon  the  validity  of  much  of 
the  most  substantial  and  vital  progress  we  have  ever 
made  in  nationality. 

Tlierc  liai  never  been  any  usurpation  of  authority  or 
"abuse"  of  power  exercised  by  any  l*!xecutivc,  or  indeed 
by  any  branch  of  government,  in  the  history  of  the 
United  States  which  was  legally  so  unwarranted,  reck- 
less, irresponsible,  gratuitous,  and  revolutionary  as  that 
of  Jefferson  in  more  than  doubling  the  area  of  the 
nation  at  one  stroke  of  the  pen  and  tnking  it  and  its  in- 
habitants, without  the  consent  of  the  governed,  into  the 
United  States  forever. 

God  bless  him  for  it 

Why  this  reckless  dictator  has  not  been  held  up  to  the 
execration  of  the  particularist  disciples  of  the  Jeflferso- 
nian  democracy  of  individualism  may  be  accounted  for  in 
the  fact  that  he  was,  here  at  least,  a  statesman  before 
he  was  a  lawyer,  a  patriot  before  a  pedant. 

Whut  he  was.  so  may  others  be  after  him,  without 
blame. 


The  Louisiana  purchase  was  revolutionary  in  more 
senses  than  one.  Xot  only  did  it  open  a  new  future  for 
the  nation,  but  it  brought  up  the  whole  question  of  the 
public  domain  in  such  a  way  as  to  change  forever  the 
question  of  state  sovereignty  by  changing  radically  the 
conditions  upon  which  states  might  be  admitted  into 
the  Union,  and  by  changing,  fundamentally,  the  powers 
of  states  so  admitted. 


THF-:  PUBLIC  l)OMAr>I 


207 


By  an  act  of  self-acknowledged  imperii  ism  JeflFerson 
liad  bought  an  empire  more  than  55,000  square  miles 
larger  tiian  the  whole  territory  of  the  United  States.  This 
was  added  to  that  Western  territory  whicii  had  been  ceded 
by  the  states  and  had  become  a  part  of  the  public  domain. 
I  [ere  was  over  one  half  of  the  national  area  which  never 
iiad  belonged  to  the  thirteen  original  states.  There  was  no 
(jucstion  here  of  prior  state  soveieignty,  for  over  half  the 
nation  now  had  been  neither  state  nor  sovereign.  It  was 
l)lain.  raw,  wild  land — 883,072  square  miles  of  it.  It 
Iiad  been  a  struggling  dependency  of  Spain  and  France. 
France  sold  it.  It  now  belonged  to  the  American  nation 
— was  a  part  of  the  national  domain  as  the  territory 
ceded  by  the  states  was  a  part  of  the  public  domain — out 
of  which  new  stat^.  jjht  be  and  were  created.  Later, 
other  territory  was  dded  to  this.  Out  of  this  great 
Western  area  thirty-five  states  have  been  formed — crea- 
tures of  a  national  government  which  was  made  by  the 
people  of  thirteen  other  states. 

When  it  is  solemnly  proclaimed  that  the  powers  of  the 
national  government  exercising  jurisdiction  over  forty- 
eight  states  were  delegated  by  the  states,  I  ask  by  what 
states?  The  vaguest  dreamer  hardly  dare  affirm  that 
constitutional  powers  have  been  delegated  to  the  national 
government  by  the  thirty-five  creations  of  that  same 
national  government.  How  does  the  relation  of  the 
tliirty-five  states,  formed  since  the  adoption  of  the 
national  Constitution,  differ  from  that  of  the  thirteen 
states  which  existed  before  that  national  government  was 
formed?  Certainly  the  thirty-five  states  are  creatures 
of  the  national  government.    Certainly  the  thirteen  states 


..Ik 


■   'I 


208 


THK  NKW  POLITICS 


are  not.  Wherefore  tliis  gulf  fixed  within  our  body 
politic — this  irreconcilable  and  monstrous  theoretical 
anomaly  ? 

We  see  that  Congress  could  and  actually  did  carve  new 
states  out  of  this  doniam,  and  set  them  up  to  arrogate 
to  themselves  all  tlie  pretensions  of  sovereign  statehood, 
claiming  equal  power  and  jurisdiction  with  the  thirteen 
original  states,  flouting  the  sovereignty  of  the  parent 
nation  which  created  them  and  made  them  states. 

The  fact  that  the  National  Government  created  new 
states  out  of  a  domain  of  its  own.  part  of  wliich  never  had 
been  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  thirteen  states — the 
fact  that  the  National  Government  could  and  did  bestow 
all  the  powers  and  dignities  of  statehood  upon  them,  is 
conclusive  proof  that  the  National  Government  is  the 
sovereign  government  and  the  state  governments  are  not, 
on  the  simple  ground  that  one  state  cannot  create  another 
state  and  confer  upon  it  greater  powers  than  itself 
possesses. 

Here  emerges  a  very  interesting  question.  What  is 
the  diflference  between  the  powers  of  those  states  which 
the  National  Government  created  and  those  which  are 
alleged  to  have  created  the  National  Government?  No 
one  would  dare  assume  but  that  each  state  of  the  Union 
is  on  the  same  footing  as  that  of  every  other  state. 

Let  us  see  just  exactly  what  this  State  Right  theory 
means. 

It  means  that  thirteen  states  divided  thirteen  sov- 
ereignties with  a  nation  which  they  created,  with 
which  the  future  thirty-five  states  had  nothing  to  do, 
except  that  the  thirteen  sovereignties  passed  over  a  frac- 


THE  PUBLIC  DOMAIN 


209 


tion  of  their  multiple  sovereignty  to  a  national  govern- 
ment which  they  created,  which  in  its  turn  passed  over  to 
thirty-five  states  wliich  it  created  the  sovereignty  it  never 
possessed.  This  half-sovereign  of  delegated  and  limited 
powers  delegates  unlimited  powers  to  its  own  creatures. 

In  other  words,  we  have  thirteen  fractions  of  original 
sovereignties  which  the  original  states  possessed  and 
thirty-five  third-hand  sovereignties  which  nothing  and 
nobody  ever  possessed. 

This  theory  may  pass  muster  under  that  theory  of 
democracy  holding  which  some  one  said — was  it  Talley- 
rand? (it  sounds  like  him) — that  he  had  vast  respect 
for  the  dignity  of  the  people,  but  very  little  for  their 
iiilelligence. 

It  sometimes  simplifies  matters  for  us  to  find  out  just 
what  we  want  to  find  out.  Certainly  one  of  the  things  we 
must  settle  is  w^hether  the  Constitution  has  any  powers 
which  the  thirteen  states  did  not  give  it,  and  whether  the 
lliirty-five  states  have  any  powers  the  Constitution  did 
not  give  them.  If  so,  who  gave  these  powers?  Perhaps 
another  question  equally  vital  to  any  clear  thinking  on 
tliis  subject  is  to  decide  ivhethcr  the  people  of  the  nation 
have  any  powers  which  the  Constitution  does  not  give 
them. 

For  the  assertion  of  the  principle  that  such  powers 
as  belong  to  the  Constitution  are  delegated  to  the  nation 
by  the  states  I  am  able  to  find  no  authority.  It  can  be 
found  neither  in  the  Constitution,  nor  in  the  records  of 
the  thirteen  popular  conventions  which  ordained  the  Con- 
stitution, nor  in  the  supreme  judicial  interpretations  of 
the  Constitution  for  over  one  hundred  years. 


Mk 


2IO 


THE  NEW  rOLITICS 


This  state  right  and  strict  construction  theor\'  lays 
itself  across  the  pathway  of  American  progress.  It  may 
be  used,  and  is  generally  used  by  the  vested  interests  and 
by  invested  privilege  as  a  bulwark  of  immunity.  It 
means  that  if,  in  the  progress  of  civilization,  the  increase 
of  wealth  and  population,  new  crises,  situations,  or  prob- 
lems have  arisen  which  have  not  been  foreseen  by  our 
forefathers,  and  are  not  enumerated  in  the  Constitu- 
tion, it  may  and  must  be  used  to  retard  the  progress 
of  the  nation.  Let  no  progress  be  made  which  has  not 
been  foreseen  and  provided  for  in  the  Constitution  made 
in  the  eighteenth  century.  The  twentieth  century  is 
shackled  to  the  eighteenth. 

7he  whole  thing  resolves  itself  into  a  point  of  view. 
The  choice  is  between  the  attitude  of  nationalist  and  indi- 
vidualist. 

The  nationalist  conceives  the  Constitution  as  a  set  of 
principles  instead  of  a  set  of  rules. 


CHAPTER  III 


NATIONALITY  AND  INTERNAL  IMPROVEMENTS 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  present  conservation  move- 
ment back  to  our  crass  eighteenth  centu;/  atomism, 
wiien  Madison,  Monroe,  and  Jackson  were  vetoing  bills 
to  "promote  the  general  welfare"  and  were  splitting  hairs 
over  the  proposition  that  it  was  constitutional  to  make 
post  roads  but  not  wagon  roads.  What  use  had  the  early 
par  '.ularists,  for  example,  for  such  a  political  institu- 
tion as  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  the  Congressional 
Library,  the  Geological  Survey,  tiie  Department  of  Agri- 
culture? 

Washington,  in  his  eighth  annual  message,  had  asked 
what  institutions  could  the  public  purse  be  devoted  to 
with  greater  propriety  than  those  for  the  promotion  of 
agriculture.  "Experience  has  already  shown  that  they 
are  very  cheap  instruments  of  immense  national  benefits." 

How  different  was  Jefferson's  attitude. 

Jefferson,  in  a  letter  to  Stuart,  in  1791,  wrote  clearly 
of  the  need  of  local  self-government,  that  states  were 
necessary  that  each  might  do  for  itself  "what  concerns 
itself  directly."  He  spoke  of  subdivisions  into  counties, 
townships,  wards,  and  farms,  and  added,  "Were  we 
directed  from  Washington  when  to  sow  and  when  to 
reap  we  should  soon  want  bread." 

As  a  matter  of  fact  that  which  Jefferson  had  scorned 
has  happened  and  the  farmer  is  not  only  directed  from 
Washington  as  to  when  to  sow  and  when  to  reap,  but 

an 


i^f 


212 


THIi  XliVV  POLITICS 


what,  and  Iiow,  and  as  to  a  thousand  other  things  as 
well  which  centralized  national  slate  interference  with 
the  farmer  and  his  methods  and  crops  and  products, 
has  made  scientists  out  of  hayseeds — who  constitute  now 
a  dignified  profession  instead  of  occupying  a  position  of 
economic  dernier  ressorf. 

Could  the  timid  spirits  of  a  hundred  years  ago  have 
dreamed  of  such  a  centralization  of  tlie  jjowers  of  the 
nation,  and  of  such  an  enlargen^ent  of  the  areas  of  its 
jurisdiction,  they  would  have  been  frightened  out  of  their 
senses,  and  one  can  even  imagine  their  bones  turning 
over  in  their  graves  to-day.  And  yet  the  Government 
still  lives  and  is  likely  to  last  some  time  longer.  But  tlie 
curious  part  of  it  is  that  the  State  Right  party  is  still 
alive  and  the  Individualists  are  crying  "No"  to  every 
affirmative  prograin  proposed  by  the  Constitutional  party 
of  the  United  States. 

When  we  remember  how  feeble  was  the  national  senti- 
ment, confined  almost  wholly  to  a  few  like  Washington, 
Hamilton,  Wilson,  and  Madison  in  the  days  before  the 
Convention;  and  how,  to  get  a  Constitution  at  all,  com- 
promises must  be  made  with  the  Jacobin  spirit  of  the  age 
which  was  so  intensely  tlie  spirit  of  eiglUeenth  century 
individualism;  and  how  even  principle  of  nationalism 
was  wrested,  as  it  were,  from  the  very  large  particular- 
ist  majority,  it  dawns  upon  us  why  we  are  a  people  still 
saturated  with  ideals  of  anarchy.  Indeed,  the  wonder  is 
that  so  much  has  been  gained. 

Through  the  initiative  given  the  cause  of  a  supreme 
and  sove'-eign  national  go\ernment  by  the  Washington 
administratic.  the  disintegrating  and  demoralizing  forces 


INTERNAL  IMPROVEMENTS 


213 


of  particularism  were  held  back  long  enough  for  national 
institutions  to  be  precipitated,  crystallized,  and  hardened. 

Jefferson's  administration,  and  those  of  his  democratic 
followers  for  a  quarter  century,  could  not  undo  the  work 
of  Washington  and  Hamilton. 

I  iiave  often  imagined  a  reversal  of  the  work  of  the 
two  parties.  I  have  tried  o  think  of  Jefferson  as  the 
tirst  President  of  the  United  States.  Eight  years  of  this 
s])irit  following  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  would 
liave  made  union  and  democracy  forever  impossible  on 
tliis  continent.  The  Constitution  would  not  have  sur- 
vived as  long  as  the  Articles  of  Confederation,  and  these 
two  Charters  of  the  American  Experiment  would  have 
found  their  way  to  some  historic  library  in  Europe  be- 
longing to  a  nation  sufficiently  consolidated  and  suf- 
ficiently strong  to  have  preyed  upon  the  struggling  and 
jealous  and  not  too  noble  peoples  of  thirteen  states.  The 
l)redictions  of  Europe  would  have  come  true. 

Some  of  our  early  history  is  instructive  and  will  bear 
restudy.  In  the  light  of  what  the  Government  is  doing 
for  the  people  to-day.  we  seem  to  be  looking  into 
tlie  (lark  ages  when  we  trace  the  history  of  the  strug- 
i^lc  for  internal  improvements  for  over  a  half  century 
of  the  reign  of  particularism.  There  is  immeasurable 
patlios  in  the  littleness  of  the  democracy  of  individual- 
ism which  obstructed  and  thwarted  the  national  senti- 
ment, fostered  the  sullen  and  selfish  particularism  wiiicli 
l)roke  all  bounds  in  Jackson's  slogan,  "To  the  victor 
l)elong  the  spoils";  placed  American  political  life  frankly 
on  the  individualistic  foundations  of  selfish  aggrandize- 
ment, from  which  it  is  likely  never  to  recover. 


■14 


1  HE  NEW  POLITICS 


Tlie  successors  vi  the  Federalists  made  an  attempt  to 
remedy  the  defects  laid  bare  by  tlie  War  of  1812,  which 
revealed  the  criminal  and  insensate  inade(iuacy  of  means 
of  internal  cuniniunicaiiun  and  transportatifm.  Better 
roads  and  \\atcr\va_\s  were  seen  tu  be  desi  "able  in  peace 
and  neces>ary  in  war.  Callnntn  joined  Clay  in  advo- 
cating a  nationalistic  inicri)reialion  of  the  Consti- 
tution rivaling  that  of  Hamilton.  But  the  ugly  spirit  of 
sectionalism  was  nowliere  shown  more  clearly  than  in  the 
defeat  of  Gallatin's  scheme  ( 1808 )  for  a  system  of  roads 
and  canals  from  A'aine  to  Louisiana,  involving  a  national 
expenditure  of  $J,ooo,ooo  a  year  for  ten  years.  This 
would  facilitate  commerce  and  immigration  and  con- 
tribute '"toward  cementing  tlie  bonds  of  union."  etc. 
But  a  majority  did  not  want  the  bonds  of  union  cemented, 
and  this  and  another  appeal  in  1816  were  defeated, 
notwithstanding  the  lessons  learnerl  in  the  war.  What 
can  Ije  more  "edifying"  than  the  legislation  for  the  Cum- 
berland Road?  Witness  Madison,  Monroe,  Jackson, 
Tyler,  Polk,  Pierce,  and  Buchanan  vetoing  the  simplest 
measures  of  Congress  looking  toward  internal  imjjrove- 
ment,  "seeing,"  as  Madison  put  it.  "that  such  a  power  is 
not  given  l)y  the  Constitution."  Monroe  enumerates  the 
specific  things  a  nation  may  do  because  permitted  by  a 
Constitution  that  nation  created,  in  a  message  in  which 
foresight  is  condemned  and  hindsight  is  prohibited. 

This  literalism  of  strict  construction  is  too  feeble  for 
men  of  thought  and  action.  The  Constitution  says  you 
may  build  post  roads.  But  it  does  not  say  you  may  build 
wagon  roads.  Therefore  the  presidents  of  the  democ- 
racy of  individualism  for  a  half  century  blocked  the  prog- 


INTERNAL  IMPROVEMENTS 


ress  of  the  nation.  Do  we  not  know — did  not  Madison, 
Monroe,  Jackson  know — tliat  a  wagon  road  is  as  much 
within  the  purpose  of  the  Constitution  as  a  post  road? — 
that  to  have  enumerated  every  item,  everything  a  grow- 
in,!,'  nation  might  do,  would  be  to  fill  up  a  national  library 
to  ilie  exclusion  of  better  material?  This  puerile  and  un- 
siatesmanlike  construction  of  the  Constitution,  utterly 
blind  to  all  Marshall  was  doing  to  make  that  Constitu- 
tion the  elastic  instrument  of  a  living  people,  found  its 
logical  result  in  the  sterility  of  democratic  legislation 
and  in  tiie  final  efifort  of  part icuk  ism  in  the  sixties  to 
make  a  real  nation  forever  impossible. 

As  early  as  1775,  Washington  had  projected  a  scheme 
for  inland  navigation  to  Detroit  which  had  not  been  ab- 
sent from  his  mind  since,  as  a  boy  surveyor,  he  had 
traversed  the  wilds  of  Pennsylvania.  It  was  not  till  he 
had  retired  to  Mount  Vernon  after  the  var  that,  with 
Jefferson,  he  took  up  the  matter  which  the  war  had 
driven  from  his  active  attention.  He  foresaw  the  future 
of  the  country  as  no  otiier  American  saw  it,  and  he  saw, 
too,  that  such  a  plan  would  give  security  to  the  citizens, 
increase  internal  commerce,  and  cement  the  bonds  of 
union  between  the  Eastern  states  and  Western  territory 
which  some  other  power  might  gain  possession  of  by 
peaceful  or  warlike  means.  Washington's  unerring  judg- 
ment showed  itself  in  his  voluminous  correspondence  on 
this  subject,  as  when  he  declared  that  he  was  looking 
so  far  ahead  as  to  facilitate  transportation  so  that  a  large 
American  population  might  be  already  settled  in  the  Mis- 
sissippi valley  before  there  was  "any  stir  about  the  navi- 
gation of  the  Mississippi." 


2l6 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


But  tliere  are  a  few  interesting  oases  in  these  arid 
areas.  They  may  be  found  in  the  glaring  inconsistencies 
of  the  party  of  strict  construction.  We  soon  find  this 
party  outdoing  Hainihonian  Federalism,  ta.xing  wliisky 
and  stills,  creating  a  national  debt,  framing  a  protective 
tariff,  chartering  a  national  bank,  nearly  four  times  as 
large  as  tliai  of  Hamilton  which  had  met  with  their 
violent  o])position. 

While  the  E.xecutive  and  Legislative  branches  of  a 
strict  constructionist  government  liad  been  stretching 
the  Constitution  to  .suit  party  and  i)ublic  jnirposes.  the 
Judiciary  was  doing  the  same  thing,  to  Mr.  Jefferson's 
dismay.  The  i-2xecutive  (during  Jefferson's  administra- 
tion) was  easily  frightened  by  this  policy  when  not 
inaugurated  by  the  Executive  itself.  But  ..  came  his 
turn  to  frig. 'ten  the  other  two  coordinated  branches  of 
government  afterward.  Mr.  Madison  arose  in  his  wrath 
and  vetoed  the  j)resumptions  of  the  national  legislative 
when  it  essayed  to  build  a  few  new  bridges,  fill  a  few 
mud  holes,  and  build  a  wagon  road  into  the  new  empire 
being  opened  west  of  the  Alleghanics. 

Madison,  in  his  famous  veto  mesage  of  March  3, 
1817.  is  sufficiently  txi)licit  as  to  his  views  on  the  powers 
of  Congress  being  "specified  and  enumerated  in  the 
eighth  section  of  the  first  article  of  the  Constitution." 
Failing  to  find  tliere  tlie  power  proposed  to  be  e.xerci.sed  by 
the  bill  "for  constructing  roads  and  canals,"  "to  give 
security  to  internal  commerce,"  "and  tc  render  more  easy 
and  less  expensive  the  n--ans  and  provisions  for  the  com- 
mon defense,"  he  vetoed  the  bill. 

Monroe's  papers  are  much  more  interesting  because 


INTliRNAL  I M FROVKM KXTS 


J17 


iie  goes  into  the  subject  in  a  way  (and  for  a  waj' )  that 
would  have  done  justice  to  a  Federalist  in  his  theory  of 
SI  ivereignty. 

On  May  4,  1822,  Monroe  vetoed  "An  act  for  the 
l)reservation  and  repair  of  the  Cumberland  road"  "with 
ilcei"  regret."  His  contention  is  beyond  dispute  that 
"a  power  to  establish  turnpikes,  with  gates  and  tolls,  and 
lo  enforce  the  collection  of  tolls  by  penalties,  implies  a 
])'iwcr  to  adopt  and  execute  a  complete  system  of  internal 
improvement,"  and  would  apply  as  far  as  to  ofifer  at 
least  constitutional  ground  for  Mr.  Bryan's  scheme  for 
the  nationalization  of  railroads.  "A  right  to  legislate 
for  one  of  these  purposes  is  a  right  to  legislate  for 
iitlicrs."  "It  is  a  complete  right  of  jurisdiction  and  sov- 
ereignty for  all  the  purposes  of  internal  improvement." 

It  is  unquestionably  true,  as  Monroe  maintains,  that, 
if  even  the  right  of  tlie  national  government  to  build  a 
culvert  or  dig  a  post  hole  can  be  maintained,  tlie  jurisdic- 
tion and  sovereignty  of  the  government  is  established  for 
all  purposes  afifecting  the  general  welfare.  So  far  the 
nationalist  agrees  with  Monroe. 

Perhaps  one  of  our  great  difficulties  has  been  the  one 
which  so  confused  Monroe  and  most  of  the  earlier  par- 
ticularists.  In  the  paper  which  accompanied  his  veto 
message  of  May  4,  1822,  he  tells  Congress  that  after 
"resisting  the  encroachments  of  the  parent  country"  the 
power  they  tore  from  the  crown  "rested  exclusively  in 
the  people."  He  speaks  further  of  the  "new  ("thirteen) 
states,  possessing  and  exercising  complete  sovereignty." 
Speaking  of  the  principle  of  representation  he  declares 
that,  "It  retains  the  sovereignty  in  the  people."     Again 


:iS 


THi-:  m:\v  politics 


he  speaks  of  the  powers  of  slate  legislatures  and  the 
piiwcrs  of  Congress.  "'J'licy  rested  on  the  same  basis,  the 
/'(■('/'/t'."  Then  the  Confederation  liecanie  obviously 
necessarj'  and  it  was  in  operation  eight  years  as  a  "com- 
pact," "all  of  wliose  powers  were  adopted  in  the  Con- 
stitution, witli  important  adilitions"  (!ic  neglects  to 
mention  the  more  imi)ortant  subtractions),  and  argues 
that  '  tvhere  certain  terms  are  transeferred  from  one  in- 
strumeiu  to  tlie  other  and  in  the  same  terms,  or  terms 
descriptive  of  tlie  same  po\vors  that  it  was  intended  that 
they  should  be  construed  in  the  same  sense  in  the  latter 
that  they  were  in  the  former."  He  is  trying  to  drag 
tlie  content  of  the  Confederation  over  into  the  Constitu- 
tion. After  quoting  the  thirteen  articles,  and  admitting 
ilicir  utter  incompetency  (although  they,  like  the  Consti- 
tution, were  to  Itc  perpetual),  he  states  that  the  Consti- 
tution was  formed  by  delegates  and  adopted  by  con- 
ventions of  each  .state,  the  credit  of  which  (the  enlarge- 
ment of  tlie  r,enera!  Government  at  the  expense  of  the 
powers  of  the  states)  is  due  "to  the  people  of  each  state" 
— he  better  might  have  said  to  the  people  of  all  the  states, 
"in  nhcdiencc  to  whfise  will  and  under  whose  control  the 
stale  governments  acted." 

But.  as  a  mailer  of  fact,  not  one  of  the  "state  govern- 
ments acted."  In  each  one  of  thirteen  cases  a  popular 
convention  acted.  Mad  the  slate  governments  acted  there 
would  never  have  been  a  Constitution  like  the  one  we 
have.  Had  they  acted  there  would  never  have  been  a 
surrender  of  sovereignty.  State  governinents  would 
never  have  consented  to  the  lessening  of  their  own 
nowers.  and  Monroe  is  riLrlit  in  ascribin;.'"  the  credit  of 


IXTKUXAL  IMPRO\EMKNTS 


219 


t!iis  "ciilijjlitcncd  patriotism"  to  the  people  of  the  states, 
v.ii  )  came  toj,'cthcr  professedly  not  as  the  people  of 
states,  but  as  peoi)Ie  wiio  wanted  a  nation — not  to  con- 
sider matters  of  local  importance,  but  of  national  con- 
cern. The  state  con\  enti(»ns  which  adopted  tiie  Constitu- 
tion were  the  local  uprisings  of  a  peop'e  desirin};  a  nation 
and  a  national  government,  meeting  in  state  conventions 
l)a;utse  one  great  popular  convention  would  have 
involved  iiardships  of  transportation  greater  than  those 
ciuhired  by  the  Sultan  of  Sulu  on  his  recent  visit  to  the 
Capital  of  his  country. 

Monroe  is  sound  in  his  contention  that  "the  people, 
the  higliest  authority  known  to  our  systetn,  from  whom 
all  our  institutions  spring  and  on  whom  they  depend," 
formed  "the  Constitution."  "Had  the  people  of  the  sev- 
eral states  thought  proper  to  incorporate  themselves  into 
one  community,  under  one  government,  they  might  have 
done  it."  Here  he  again  confuses  Confederation  and 
Ojnstitution.  He  claims  that  powers  transferred  from 
one  instrument  to  the  other  "should  be  construed  in  the 
same  .sense"  in  the  one  as  in  the  other.  This  cannot  be 
maintained.  Every  article  of  the  Confederation  must 
be  modified  by  the  statement  in  Article  I  that  it  is  a 
Confederacy,  and  in  Article  H  that  "each  state  retains 
its  sovereignty,"  etc.,  "and  every  power,  jurisdiction,  and 
riLjht  which  is  not  by  this  Confederation  expressly  dele- 
j^atcd  to  the  United  States  in  Congress  assembled";  and 
Article  HI,  "The  said  states  enter  into  a  league  of 
friendship,"  etc. 

Nothing  pertaining  to  political  sovereignty  or  sanc- 
tion can  mean  the  same  under  the  limitations  of  such  an 


220 


THK  NI.W  I'OLITICS 


ill-conccivod  and  l()f)scly  cotistitnted  siil)stitiitc  for  a 
fundainciital  law,  as  it  must  nicaii  under  an  instrument 
framed  hy  a  people  di-^;,'ustcd  and  afraid  of  anarchy 
and  inspii'^d  by  the  patriotism  of  nati'Miality,  wlii>  have 
met  to  abolish  the  louse-juinled  and  incompetent  com- 
pact wliith  is  not  even  ade(|nate  for  a  Iea;;ne  of  f.iend- 
ship;  and  to  frame  tlie  sovereign  instrument  of  a  sov- 
ereij,'n  i)eople  and  accouch  a  sovcreif,'n  tiation. 

Tlius:  "U'c.  the  people  of  the  United  States  .  .  .  do 
ordain  and  estabhsh  this  Constitution.  " 

Nothinj;  mo(Uficd  by  the  Preamlilc  of  tlie  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States  can  mean  the  same  as  it  would 
restricted  by  the  first  tliree  articles  of  the  Confederation. 

Monroe  held  to  the  Rousseau  theory  of  a  social  con- 
tract, which  was  hardly  questioned  in  democratic  com- 
munities in  those  days — the  theory  that  society  was  the 
result  of  a  contract  made  by  a  people  who  never 
existed.  It  was  easy,  therefore,  for  him  to  c(Misider 
the  Constitution  as  the  same  as  the  Confederation — a 
conijiact.     On  this  rock  future  genera''  it      ere  'o  ?|)1't. 

It  had  not  yet  dawned  upon  the  atje  of  revolutionary 
individualism,  nor  perhaps  yet  has  the  conception  dawned 
upon  the  world,  that  the  birth  of  a  nation  was  no  figure 
of  si)eech,  but  that  in  a  real  deep  sen.se  sopiethiing  organic 
had  conic  into  being.  Here  lies  tlie  inipass.able  gulf 
between  eighteenth  and  twentieth  century  tliought. 

Tlie  political  anomaly  of  to-day  is  the  survival  of  the 
old  ideals  and  ideas  and  the  failure  of  their  belated 
devotees  to  justify  them  to  modern  thought;  who  con- 
strue the  problems  of  an  organism  in  the  terms  of 
mechanics. 


INTi:kN.\l.  IMPROVF.MI'.NTS 


2Jl 


Speaking  of  tlie  i)arties  Id  the  "i  oiiipact,"  Monmc  says 
ihe  iH;()i)le  "are  the  sole  parties  and  may  amend  it  at 
pleasure."  Why  can  they  not  construe  it  at  pleasure. 
It  It  is  (lone  by  Marshall's  rule— not  unconstitution- 
ally? If  it  is  a  compact  or  a  contract,  or  what  not, 
and  if  the  people  are  sovereign,  why  can  they  not  say, 
'We  can  amend  this  Constitution  as  we  i)lease,  and  we 
can  construe  it  as  we  like,  ami  we  can  dictate  the  methods 
..f  construction  and  amendment"?  We  the  people!  Who 
are  we  the  people?  We  the  living  people  or  the  dead 
people?  Are  wc  forever  chained  to  the  corpse  of  the 
jiast  or  must  we  think  and  act  for  ourselves  and  for  the 
iiiil)orn? 

That  is  a  profound  observation  of  Monroe:  "There 
were  two  separate  and  inrlependent  governments  estab- 
lished over  our  Union,  one  for  local  purposes  over  each 
slate,  by  the  people  (jf  the  state,  the  other  for  national 
purposes  by  the  people  of  the  United  States."'  Monroe 
recognizes  no  areas  of  anarchy  such  as  have  been  devel- 
oped by  the  complex  conditions  of  modern  national  life. 
over  which  neither  state  nor  i. at  ion  exercises  supreine 
autliority.  "The  national  government  begms  where  the 
state  government  terminates,"  he  says.  He  does  not 
<ay  the  state  governments  begin  where  the  national 
government  terminates.  The  state  government  was 
established  by  the  people  of  the  state  "for  local  purposes" 
and  the  national  government  was  established  by  the 
l)eople  of  the  United  States  "for  national  purposes." 
"The  great  office  of  the  Constitution,  by  incorporating 
tlie  people  of  the  several  states  to  the  extent  of  its  powers 
(^over  national  purposes")  into  one  community,  and  ena- 


222  THK  XF:\V  rOLITICS 

bling  it  to  act  directly  on  tiie  people,  was  to  annul  the 
powers  of  the  state  governments  to  that  extent,"  viz., 
it  keeps  the  po^-ers  of  tlie  state  government  entirely 
within  the  scope  of  "local  purposes"  wliich  concern  the 
people  of  that  state  and  that  state  alone. 

"It  is  owing  to  tlie  nature  of  its  (the  Constitution's) 
powers  and  the  high  source  from  whence  they  are  derived 
— the  people — that  it  performs  that  office  better  than 
the  Confederation  or  any  league  which  ever  existed,  being 
a  compact  which  the  state  governments  did  not  form,  to 
which  they  were  not  parties  and  which  executes  its  own 
powers  independently  of  them." 

Monroe  then  reveals  an  irreconcilable  breach  in  his 
argument. 

He  makes  much  of  the  fact  that  sovereignty  was 
divided  into  thirteen  equal  parts  by  the  revolution  and 
distributed  among  thirteen  commonwealths,  arguing  that 
they  retained  all  that  was  not  explicitly  and  concretely 
given  up  by  these  states  to  the  "compact"  of  Union. 
His  sovereignty  of  the  state  cannot  be  harmonized  with 
the  sovereignty  of  the  people  with  their  own  dual  form  of 
government,  the  one  by  the  state  "for  local  purposes" 
and  the  other  by  the  nation  "for  national  purposes." 
If  the  nation  was  formed  by  the  sovereign  people  of  the 
nation  which  was  formed  to  provide  a  national,  funda- 
mental law  for  "national  purpose--':  on  the  ground 
that  the  people  is  the  ultimate  sovereign,  their  own 
fundamental  law  is  sovereign  over  every  national  con- 
cern and  for  every  national  purpose,  and  Monroe 
cut  the  ground  from  under  his  own  feet  in  his  veto  of 
the  bill  for  the  Cumberland  road.    It  follows  that  the  sov- 


INTERNAL  IMPROVEMENTS 


223 


crcigti  people  o^  a  nation,  sovereign  for  all  national 
jiiirposcs,  must  possess  a  fundamental  law  adequate  to 
all  national  purposes ;  that  it  has  the  right  "to  establish 
turnpikes  with  gates  and  tollr  etc.,"  and  that  if  it  has 
these  rights  it  has  the  r''^hi  .if  "jurisdiction  and  sov- 
ereignty for  all  the  purp  ses  of  iiuernal  improvement." 

If  this  is  granted  the  ■•,•. reign  nation  has  the  right 
(if  jurisdiction  over  all  national  concerns.  It  "begins 
wliere  the  state  governments  terminate."  That  is,  it 
begins  where  "local  purposes"  end  and  where  "national 
purposes"  begin,  and  it  does  not  end  till  "national  pur- 
puses"  end. 

The  nationalist  of  the  type  of  Justice  Wilson  clings 
steadfastly  to  the  essential  piinciple  of  home  rule  for 
local  purposes.  The  principle  is  one  of  the  foundation 
stones  of  the  two  great  nations  of  the  North  American 
Continent — that  of  local  self-government.  No  national- 
ist will  deny  this.  What  he  denies  is  that  local  power  is 
sovereign  over  national  concerns.  The  point  is  clearly 
brought  out  by  the  British  writer,  Oliver,  in  his  work  on 
Hamihon,  perhaps  the  most  intelligent  piece  of  writing 
on  American  politics  published  m  this  generation.  He 
says  (p.  190),  "Between  the  fanatics  for  State  Rights, 
wliom  we  condemn,  and  the  upholders  of  the  dignity 
and  utility  of  local  authorities,  whom  we  have  been  taught 
to  admire,  there  is,  in  fact,  only  a  difference  in  degree. 
A  commonwealth  in  which  this  spirit  had  ceased  to  exist 
might  be  safely  marked  as  a  dying  race ;  but  in  the  view 
of  the  statesman  it  can  never  be  allowed  the  upper  hand. 
Like  the  steam  in  the  boiler  it  serves  its  purpose  by  its 
effort  to  escape  from  imprisonment  and  control;  but  if 


224 


THE  VEVV  POLITICS 


these   efforts   are  successful,   there   is  an  end   of  the 
utility." 

We  see  in  Monroe,  up  to  the  point  of  application  of  the 
principle  to  a  policy  unpopular  with  his  party,  a  total 
agreement  with  that  wisest  of  nationalists,  Justice  Wil- 
son, but  who  was  enough  of  a  democrat  to  advocate  the 
election  of  both  houses  of  Congress  by  the  people;  who, 
indeed,  as  has  been  said,  was  the  first  man  in  American 
history  who  believed  both  in  democracy  and  nationalism. 

He  kept  the  distinction  clear  between  a  national  gov- 
ernment, wliich  was  supreme  in  national  affairs,  giving 
tlie  states  home  rule  over  home  affairs,  and  a  national 
government  whicli  would  swallow  the  state  government 
and  anniliilate  the  rights  of  states.  As  Monroe  did  after 
him,  he  insisted  tliat  both  national  and  state  governments 
were  derived  from  the  people.  "The  general  govern- 
ment is  not  an  assemblage  of  states,  but  of  individuals, 
for  certain  political  purposes — it  is  not  meant  for  the 
states,  but  for  the  indivichials  composing  them :  the  indi- 
viduals, therefore,  not  ijie  states,  ought  to  be  represented 
in  it."  He  distinguished  sharply  between  the  state  and 
government.  Sovereign  power  is  not  lodged  in  the  Con- 
stitution, but  in  society— the  people.  In  a  nutshell,  the 
state  government  is  supreme  for  local  purposes,  and 
derives  its  sovereign  power  from  the  people.  The 
national  government  is  supreme  for  national  purposes — 
purposes  "to  the  direction  of  which  no  particular  state 
is  competent" — and  it  derives  its  power  from  the  sov- 
ereign people. 

The  Articles  of  Confederation  were  undemocratic  in 
not  recognizing  this  principle— that   the  source  of  all 


INTERNAL  IMPROVEMENTS 


225 


power  lies  in  the  people — and  it  is  from  the  Articles  of 
Confederation  we  derive  that  form  of  State  Right  senti- 
ment to  this  day. 

So  far  Monroe  holds  with  Wilson.  How  then  he  conld 
veto  the  Cumberland  Road  Bill  is  not  easy  to  understand. 

"IVhcncver  an  object  occurs,"  said  Justice  Wilson, 
"to  the  direction  of  which  no  particular  state  is  compe- 
tent, the  management  of  it  must  of  necessity  belong  to 
the  United  States  in  Congress  assembled"   (Works  I, 

Tliis  is  a  clear  statement  of  the  logic  of  nationality. 


we 


CHAPTER  IV 

BACK  TO   THE   PEOPLE 

There  is  no  more  striking  development  of  modern 
political  history  than  in  the  paradox  that  Jeffersonian 
democracy  has  been  the  fcstr  burg  of  the  instinct  of 
despotism,  while  the  "aristocratic"  and  monarchic  (?) 
ideas  of  Washington  and  of  Hamilton  have  safeguarded 
the  principle  of  true  democracy— government  by  and  of 

the  people. 

The  pathetic  fulfillment  of  the  promises  of  eighteenth 
century  individualism,  which  shrieked  its  paltry  lies — 
"liberty,  equality,  fraternity" — culminated  early  in 
France  in  the  Red  Terror  and  the  Rule  of  Napoleon, 
while  in  the  United  States  it  found  expression  in  the 
institution  of  human  slavery,  the  aristocracy  of  the 
South;  tlie  doctrines  of  nullification  and  the  denouement 
of  Civil  War,  and  just  now  in  the  multibillionaire. 

A  tragic  dawn  of  millennium  truly  for  so  brilliant 
a  promise ! 

But  there  cnnkl  have  been  no  other  outcon.e  of  politi- 
cal atomism,  for  at  bottom  the  economics  of  individual- 
ism means  free  competition,  where  the  big  eat  the  little, 
and  to-day  we  iiave  one  man  owning  or  controlling 
one  eleventh  of  tlie  entire  national  assets;  while  in  poli- 
tics it  means  tliat  might  makes  right  and  has  crystallized 
in  boss  rule. 

When  the  Tories  left  for  Canada,  which  migration 
was  an  irretrievable  loss  to  the  new  nation,  the  people 

226 


BACK  TO  THE  PEOPLE  227 

split  into  two  parties  over  the  Constitution.  The  Httle 
states  wanted  to  count  for  as  much  as  the  big  states  and 
were  for  State  Rights,  state  representation,  state  election 
of  national  officers  which  should  represent  states,  not 
jjcople ;  and  they  declared  for  state  sovereignty  and  weak 
national  government. 

The  national  party,  which  would  have  been  largely 
recruited  by  those  who  became  the  United  Empire 
Loyalists  of  Canada,  and  who,  had  they  stayed,  would 
have  become  loyal  Americans  (for  it  was  their  nature 
to  be  loyal),  stood  for  popular  elections,  proportional  rep- 
resentation, a  sufficient  national  government,  and  the  sub- 
ordination of  the  parts  to  the  whole.  This  was  the  party 
of  real  democracy.  Not  that  party  hiding  behind  revo- 
lutionary phrases,  while  gathering  to  itself  the  forces 
which  made  for  nullification,  secession,  and  human 
slavery — this  party  of  Rousseau  and  Robespierre, 
Thomas  Jefferson  and  Jefferson  Davis. 

One  of  the  vital  questions  of  the  early  days  was  that  of 
sources  of  political  power.  Whence  shall  we  derive  it? 
The  Jeflersonian  particularist  Jacobin  party  said,  "from 
the  ::tate" — thus  saith  this  party  of  "liberty,  equality, 
fraternity,"  this  party  of  "popular  sovereignty,"  this 
"democracy,"  owning  slaves. 

"From  the  people,"  said  the  party  of  Washington; 
said  tlie  "friends  of  Monarchy":  these  aristocrats  who 
would  not  join  France  in  a  war  against  England  out  of 
"gratitude"  to  the  assassins  of  their  allies.  "From  the 
jieople,"  said  the  nationalists.  "Who  shall  elect  the 
national  officers?"  "The  states,"  said  the  "democrats," 
"The  people."  said  the  "aristocrats."    "On  what  basis?" 


2j8  THI-:  NKW   I'OLITICS 

"Tliirteen  to  one,"  quoth  the  "democrats."  "Upon  the 
people  of  the  slates  in  proportion  to  tlieir  number  and 
not  tlie  number  of  the  states."  said  the  national  party, 
enfranchising  slaves. 

Down  here  in  this  twentieth  century  we  are  wiping 
away  one  of  the  last  of  the  compromises  with  the  aristo- 
cratic principle,  ami  we  are  goinj,'  to  let  the  people  elect 
the  Senate.  It  is  b:ul  enoujj;h  that  the  smallest  state 
should  furnish  as  many  as  l!ic  largest.  It  is  a  survival 
of  the  State  Rit;ht  idea. 

These  little  states  then  formed  an  anti-party  who  op- 
posed the  nationalists,  declaring  preference  to  submit  to 
foreign  power  rather  than  accede  to  the  principle  of  pro- 
portional representation.  State  jealousy  became  the  stum- 
bling block  and  was  the  cause  of  the  survival  of  the 
doctrine  of  state  sovereignty.  The  statesmen  of  the  con- 
vention who  wanted  a  Constitution  und-r  which  govern- 
ment would  be  really  democratic— i.  e..  kept  next  to  the 
people;  i.  e.,  deriving  power  directly  from  them  and  exer- 
cising authority  directly  over  them — were  crowded  by  the 
little  state  jealousies  into  a  com])romise  with  the  demo- 
cratic principle.  Hence  the  modern  Millionaires'  Club  on 
Capitol  Hill. 

The  earlier  statesmen  of  the  nation  foresaw  the  dim 
outlines  of  how  a  people  devoted  to  the  jihilosophy  of 
egoism,  or  "enlightened"  self-interest,  would  work  out 
their  destiny  on  anarchistic  lines  and  without  the  principle 
of  national  self-control.  They  saw  that  a  people  to 
whom  their  theory  of  life  was  justification  of  their  own 
selfishness  would  soon  evolve  a  despotism  along  what- 
ever line  their  daily  life  proceeded,  simply  because  laisses 


RACK  TO  THI-:  PEOPLE 


229 


I 


fairc  offers  no  control  of  the  strong  and  cunning,  and 
the  weak  perish  and  the  strong  win. 

The  first  phase  of  this  struggle  in  this  country  was 
over  this  question  of  representation.  On  tliis  the  little 
statesmen  got  together.  Their  position  was  prompted 
by  unequa!  proporlions  of  local  jealousy  and  universal 
Jacobinism.  The  statesmen  saw  that  any  really  demo- 
cratic institutions  must  provide  'or  the  direct  operation 
of  the  fundamental  law  upon  the  people  instead  of  the 
state,  and  that  this  law  must  receive  its  sovereign 
authority  from  the  people  and  not  from  the  state. 
Indeed,  had  not  the  old  government  of  the  Confederation 
failed  because  it  operated  on  states;  because  it  could 
not  punish  states;  because  it  derived  its  scant  authority 
from  them?  To  be  sure  the  demand  that  the  new  con- 
stitutional government  should  act  upon  and  proceed 
direct  from  the  people  was  revolutionary.  But  then  the 
late  war  was  none  the  worse  because  it  had  been  revolu- 
tionary.    It  must  be  tried. 

Delegated  powers  meant  also  delegated  representation, 
and  this,  at  least,  must  not  be  handed  over  again  to 
states.  In  other  words,  there  could  be  no  adequate 
democratic  government  until  the  bnr-iers  were  battered 
down  between  government  and  people  and  people  and 
government.  The  clumsy  and  artificial  instrument  which 
represented  nothing  but  thirteen  units,  and  represented 
them  to  no  efficient  purpose,  and  with  it  tlie  ari.stocratic 
principle  involved,  must  give  way  to  a  government  on 
democratic  foundations  directly  in  touch  with  every 
person  in  the  nation.  It  is  a  curious  fact  in  the  irony  of 
logic,  as  well  as  the  irony  of  history,  that  the  aristocratic 


_>3o  THE  i\I-:\V  i'OLlTICS 

principle  represented   in  the   aristocratic   party   of   the 
United  Slates  Senate,  which  represents  the  states  and 
not  the  people,  should  have  been  a  compromise  in  pro- 
pitiation of  the  party  of  the  democracy  of  individualism. 
This  undemocratic  principle  of  state  representation  in 
place  of  popular  representation  was  a  fatal  defect.     It 
was   fatal  not  only  because  it  denied  the  fundamental 
principle  of  democracy,  but  because  it  did  not  contain 
tlie  principles  which  were  adequate  to  a  national  life. 
For  instance,  the  Congress  could  make  treaties  and  nego- 
tiate loans  with  foreign  Powers,  but  always  with  a  feel- 
ing   that   thirteen   quarreling    sovereignties,    bound    to- 
gether in  a  "league  of  friendship,"  might  find  themselves 
nullifying  their  action  and  repudiating  their  foreign  obli- 
gations simply  because  they  had  come  to  pulling  each 
others'  ears  in  their  equal  wisdom  and  superior  authority. 
The  states  were  under  no  compulsion  whatever  to  raise 
money  voted  by  Congress,  to  perform  the  part  stipulated 
by  Congress,  or  to  abide  by  the  promises  of  the  national 
legislature.      Congress   represented  the   states,   but   the 
states    flagrantly   flouted  its   plighted    faith.      Congress 
miglit  promise  to  pay.  but  the  states  might  refuse  if  it 
were  the  sweet  will  of  thirteen  jealous  sovereignties. 
The   Articles   of  Confederation   were   a   plaything   for 
children.    They  embodied  the  princijjles  of  the  Declara- 
tion of   Independence.     The  instrument   was  the  cpiin- 
tessence  of  Jeffersonian  transcendentalism  and  the  vehicle 
of  anarchy. 

The  convention  was  not  proposing  amendments  to  con- 
federation, but  abolition  of  the  confederation.  It  offered 
an  cntiidy  new  instrument  for  an  entirely  new  govern- 


BACK  TO  THE  PEOPLE 


231 


ment,  which  must  go,  and  did  go,  to  that  source  of 
political  power  which  created  every  state;  the  power 
which  had  given  them  the  right  to  enter  the  compact  of 
confederation,  which  could  abolish  that  confederation, 
and  which  could  and  did  set  up  a  revolutionary  govern- 
ment. 

Thus  the  second  American  revolution  was  achieved. 

It  was  ordained  that  the  Constitution  siiould  be  the 
fundamental  law  of  the  people  of  such  states  as  those 
whose  people  inight  adopt  it.  This  was  recognition  of 
state  sovereignty  only  so  long  as  such  a  state  might 
refuse  to  assent  to  the  Constitution.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
each  state  was,  until  such  a  time,  practically  a  sovereign 
state,  but  when  the  people  of  that  state  voted  for  the 
fundamental  law  that  status  was  changed  on  the  ground 
that  in  this  act  the  Constitution  had  the  full  and  direct 
authority  of  the  people. 

It  was  necessary  to  establish  the  principle  that  final 
authority  rests  with  the  people.  If  it  ever  became  neces- 
sary for  the  nation  to  restrain  or  harmonize  the  states, 
under  powers  which  the  very  theory  of  nationality 
demanded,  it  must  be  done  on  the  established  proposi- 
tion that  the  ai  hority  of  all  the  people  exceeds  that  of 
a  thirteenth  part  thereof.  There  was  no  room  for  this 
proposition  under  a  theory  of  a  mere  union  of  sovereign 
states.  That  union  had  been  tried.  It  had  failed  to 
interpret  the  fundamental  idea  of  democracy  established 
by  the  Revolution  because  its  remote  and  feeble  powers 
depended  wholly  upon  thirteen  separate  pleasures.  There 
were  no  adequate  sanctions.  No  measure  could  be  e.xe- 
cuted  but  with   the  separate  approval  of  each  of  the 


sf 


23-! 


THE  Ni:\V  POLITICS 


states.  Such  a  situation  was  monstrous,  and  to  con- 
tinue it  was   folly. 

Tlien  it  was  that  the  Washin^tonian  I'ederalists  came 
forward  with  the  real  democratic  theory  of  tlie  state, 
and  it  is  a  matter  of  surpassing  interest  to  note  how 
tlie  Ilamiltonian  i)hi!osoph  saved  the  Jeffersonian  in- 
stinct to  keep  i)eoi)Ie  and  government  close  together. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  a  national 
protest  against  the  anarchy  into  which  the  country  was 
drifting.  It  was  enacted  to  make  one  nation  with  a 
common  good  out  of  thirteen  nations  with  uncommon 
grievances;  to  harmonize  clasliing  interests  and  "pro- 
mote the  general  welfare."  Party  lines  diverged  here 
and  the  issues  were  clean  cut. 

One  after  another  of  the  wise  men  saw  the  insuper- 
able difficulties  in  tlie  immediate  future,  and  began  to 
pave  the  way  for  a  constitutional  convention.  Webster 
wrote,  in  i7<S5  (Sketches  of  American  Politics),  "There 
must  be  a  sujjreme  power  at  the  head  of  the  I'nion 
vested  with  authority  .  .  .  so  long  as  any  individual 
state  has  power  to  defeat  the  measures  of  the  other  twelve 
our  pretended  Union  is  but  a  name  anu  our  confedera- 
tion a  cobwet)." 

Madison  wrote  (Writings,  Hunt's  Edition,  vol.  2): 
"An  individual  independence  of  the  states  is  utterly 
irrect)ncilable  with  the  idea  of  an  aggregate  sover- 
eignty." 

He  proposed  a  middle  ground,  "without  the  interven- 
tion of  the  states"  supporting  the  supremacy  of  national 
authority  and  leaving  "in  force  the  local  authorities  as 
far  as  they  can  be  subordinately  useful." 


BACK  TO   rHK  PKOPLE 


233 


Tliere  was  no  tlioiight  in  his  mind,  at  that  time,  of 
their  being  coordinatcly  useful. 

Tliat  Motion  came  when  he  wanted  office. 

Hamilton  called  for  a  federal  government  adequate 
to  the  exigencies  of  the  Union,  and  Washington  declared 
there  must  be  an  imlis.soluhlc  union  of  all  the  states  under 
a  single  federal  government,  which  must  possess  the 
power  of  enforcing  its  decrees. 

The  idea  which  arose  steadily  out  of  the  surrounding 
chaos  of  individualism,  and  which  began  to  guide  the 
deliberations  of  the  people,  and  later  of  the  Constitu- 
tional Convention,  was  that  the  individuals  of  the  nation, 
and  not  tliirteen  centralized  governments,  should  and 
nnist  be  the  constituent  elements  of  any  lasting  unity. 
It  was  felt  from  the  failure  of  the  Confederation,  from 
the  impotency  of  Congress,  from  the  jealousy  of  the 
states,  from  the  want  of  a  central  government  with  more 
power  of  taxation,  from  the  lack  of  power  in  Congress 
to  legislate  for  the  new  states  to  be  formed  from  the 
Northwestern  lands,  that  the  underlying  faults  of  the 
Confederation  were  fundamental  and  that  such  govern- 
ment as  there  was  was  one  for  states  in  the  capacity  of 
sovereign  states  and  wholly  without  authority  to  reach 
directly  the  individuals  of  the  nation. 

To  be  sure,  Jefferson  and  a  few  radical  particularists 
held  that  the  Articles  of  Confederation  could  be  patched 
to  serve  all  needs  because  he  wanted  no  national  govern- 
ment other  than  a  department  for  foreign  affairs,  and 
that  a  cheap  one. 

But  the  large  majority  felt  that  the  Confederation  had 
failed  and  that  their  experience  had  taught  them  this  much. 


4 


■i 


-rf 


-34 


TIIIC  Ni:\V   POIJIICS 


that  Si)  tar  as  national  Icj^islative  powers  were  concerned 
llicy  must  be  supreme  in  two  ticlds — where  the  states 
are  incompetent  and  where  state  legislation  would  inter- 
rupt the  harmony  of  the  Union.  They  went  furtiier, 
and  unanimously  aj,'reed  that  the  Supreme  Court,  under 
its  powers,  could  make  void  such  legislation  as  was  con- 
trary to  national  need  or  the  general  powers  of  the  funda- 
mental law.  It  was  clearly  seen  that  this  meant  nation- 
ality; and  that  the  logic  of  nationality  would  play  havor 
with  the  theory  of  State  Riglits;  and  that  when  its  prin- 
ciple was  established  and  accepted  that  the  supremacy 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  that  against 
which  no  separate  state  power  can  be  exerted,  the  doc- 
trine of  state  sovereignty  was  finally  annihilated. 

Yet  after  this  principle  was  established,  and  after  it 
was  admitted  that,  should  it  be  established,  the  State 
Rights  doctrine  would  be  demolished,  the  supporters  of 
State  Rights  revived  the  old  issue  and  have  contended 
for  it  from  that  day  to  this,  and,  queerly  enough,  on 
a  theory  of  strict  construction  they  have  been  trying  to 
read  into  the  Constitution  that  which  the  loosest  inter- 
pretation could  not  extract  from  it.  That  the  majority 
of  the  framers  were  right  is  clear  from  the  consideration 
that  such  independence  as  a  state  may  have  is  not  inde- 
pendence of  the  Constitution,  but  in  and  through  it.  As, 
indeed,  the  freedom  of  the  individual  is  not  freedom  to 
disobey  the  law  but  to  walk  in  avenues  opened  up  by  the 
law  and  respect  the  fences  built  by  the  law.  On  this 
principle  the  stale,  even  in  local  concerns,  cannot  be 
sovereign  over  the  will  of  the  whole  people,  else  Bu- 
chanan was  right  when  he  claimed  the  states  could  not 


BALK  TO  Till-    IMCOPI.' 


235 


be  coerced  by  Coiif^rcs-i,  and  Madison  was  wrong  wlieii 
lie  claimed  that  repiiblicnii  liberty  coul<l  not  exist  under 
M)ine  of  the  abuses  of  certain  states,  and  even  some  mat- 
ters of  internal  Ixal  state  lej^ishtion  must  be  restrained 
by  the  national  government. 

One  of  the  first  questions  arising  in  the  Constitutional 
Convention  was  this  r|uestion  of  the  jieople  or  the  states. 
Was  the  new  instrument  to  be  ordained  by  the  people 
or  by  the  states  for  tlie  |)eoi»le  or  for  the  states?  The 
way  these  tpiestions  were  answered  was  to  decide  whether 
it  was  a  nation  to  be  created  or  tlie  patchwork  of  a 
confederacy  to  be  continued.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  up  to  this  time,  politically  streaking,  there  was  no 
American  nation,  and  never  hail  been.  There  were 
thirteen  American  nations.  All  of  the  people  belonged 
to  one  of  these  thirteen  .\merican  nations,  except  the 
few  straggling  pioneers  who  had  wandered  into  tlie 
forest  beyond  the  AUeglianics.  Up  to  this  time  these  did 
not  count.  The  only  way  the  vast  majority  of  the  people 
could  concei\e  of  anything  important  being  done  was 
by  or  througii  states,  since  there  was  no  nation,  unless 
there  were  thirteen.  The  only  possible  way,  therefore, 
by  wliich  anytliing  could  be  done  was  through  the 
machinery  (»f  states.  This  fact  is  the  more  emphasized 
as  we  remember  the  difficulties  of  communication,  and 
that  it  took  longer  in  those  days  to  go  from  Boston  to 
New  York  than  it  does  now  to  cross  the  Continent. 
Much  of  the  significance  of  state  action  rc'j;arding  this 
whole  constitutional  movement  may  be  attributed  to  con- 
venience and  geogra])hy.  The  extraordinary  difficulty 
and  expense  of  getting  the  whole  people  together  in  any 


t: 


-*fi.-^ 


236 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


adequate  representation,  in  one  place  and  one  conven- 
tion, were  prohibitive  of  that  method. 

I  fear  too  many  of  our  assumptions  have  been  founded 
on  Madison's  famous  argument  in  the  Federalist  on 
"The  Constitution  Strictly  Rcpttblican,"  in  which  he  con- 
cludes that  the  act  establishing  tlie  Constitution  will  not 
be  a  national  but  a  federal  act,  "because  the  Constitution 
is  to  be  founded  upon  the  assent  and  ratification  of  the 
several  states  derived  from  the  supreme  power  of  each 
state — the  authority  of  the  people  themselves." 

The  vital  distinction  between  "the  states"  and  the 
"supreme  authority  of  each  state"  (which,  by  the  way, 
makes  or  unmakes  states),  the  distinction  between  crea- 
ture and  creator,  seems  to  have  escaped  the  attention  of 
Mr.  Madison 

The  argument  was  doubtless  put  forward  in  order 
to  win  votes  for  the  Constitution  from  those  who  were 
afraid  of  the  very  idea  of  nationality,  and  jealous  of 
every  encroachment  upon  that  rampant  individualism  of 
the  day  which  so  nearly  made  a  Constitution  of  the  nation 
impossible.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  while  Hamilton, 
who  drafted  the  Annapolis  rejiort,  recommended  a  Con- 
stitution wliich  should  be  agreed  to  by  Congress  and 
afterward  confirmed  by  the  legislatures  of  every  state 
(l-Llliot's  Debates  I,  118),  Madison  (Writings,  Hunt's 
Edition,  361-69)  argued  that  it  was  one  of  the  vices  of 
the  political  systems  of  the  United  States  that  the  rati- 
fication of  the  articles  should  be  made  by  the  legislatures 
and  not  by  the  people.  It  is  interesting  to  see  Madison 
going  further  than  Hamilton  in  this  direction. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  had  the  articles  been  assented  to 


BACK  TO  THE  PEOPLE 


237 


and  ratified  by  the  states  it  would  have  been  through 
their  sovereign  government,  namely,  the  legislatures  of 
the  states.  As  a  matter  of  further  fact  they  were  not 
thus  assented  to  and  ratified.  They  went  back  to  the 
people,  who  make  legislatures,  governments,  and  sov- 
ereign instruments,  and  these  the  people,  not  in  legis- 
latures, but  in  convention  assembled,  ordained  the  Con- 
stitution and  made  it  a  national  and  not  a  federal  act. 

How  else  could  a  natonal  act  have  been  performed? 

It  is  singular  that  a  man  of  Madison's  acumen  should 
have  so  failed  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  his  own  words : 
"Derived  from  the  supreme  authority  in  each  state — the 
authority  of  the  people  themselves." 

How  could  he  admit  that  there  was  a  supreme  author- 
ity in  each  state  behind  the  state,  which  created  the 
state,  namely,  the  authority  of  the  people;  and  say  that 
the  Constitution  is  to  be  founded  on  the  assent  and  rati- 
fication of  that  "supreme  authority  in  each  state"  behind 
the  state,  and  which  created  the  state ;  and  that  it  could 
remain  a  "federal  and  not  a  national  act"? 

But  this  is  not  ahogether  to  the  point.  Have  we  for- 
gotten that  Madison's  argument  was  written  before  the 
Constitution  was  adopted,  that  his  famous  essay  is  theory 
and  not  history,  and  that  as  a  matter  of  cold  historic 
fact  the  Constitution  did  not  go  to  the  states  at  all,  but 
to  the  supreme  authority  in  each  case,  the  people  them- 
selves ? 

It  must  be  remembered,  then,  that  the  Constitution 
was  proposed  to  the  people  of  the  states  (not  to  the 
states),  for  therf?  were  no  people  outside  the  states;  and 
not  to  the  people  of  the  nation,  because  there  was  as  yet  no 


238 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


nation.  There  was  simply  a  compact  or  league  of  friend- 
ship, dissoluble  by  consent  of  all  the  states  as  parties. 
The  convention  suggested  that  the  new  plan  should  first 
receive  the  assent  of  the  existing  Congress,  and  then  the 
assent  of  Assemblies,  composed  of  representatives  ex- 
pressly chosen  by  the  people  to  act  for  them  qua  the 
people  in  constitutional  convention  to  approve  or  reject. 
Each  one  of  the  thirteen  state  conventions  which  rati- 
fied the  federal  Constitution  was  a  popular  convention 
and  not  a  legislature,  and.  therefore,  the  people  in  con- 
vention assembled  and  not  the  state  qua  state  ratified 
the  Constitution.  The  instrument  was  offered  to  the 
people,  and  each  act  of  ratification  on  the  part  of  the 
popular  convention  of  every  state  adopting  the  Consti- 
tution set  forth  plainly  that  such  ratification  proceeded 
from  a  convention  of  the  people  of  that  state. 

To  have  submitted  the  Constitution  to  the  states  would 
have  destroyed  the  foundations  of  democracy,  direct 
representation  by  the  people. 

This  was  the  fatal  defect  of  the  confederation.  It 
was  separated  from  the  people  by  the  governments  of  the 
states.  When  Edmund  Randolph.  Governor  of  Virginia, 
presented  a  plan  for  a  federal  Constitution,  written  prob- 
ably by  Madison,  he  proposed,  "that  a  national  govern- 
ment ought  to  be  establislied,  consisting  of  a  legislative, 
executive,  and  judiciary,"  and  took  tlie  first  revolutionary 
step  toward  the  anniliilation  of  the  old  confederation. 
The  important  distinction  between  a  confederate  and  a 
national  government  began  to  take  form.  The  concep- 
tion of  a  nation  was  dimly  seen  to  involve  the  common 
life   and   the   common   good  of  a   united   people   with 


'Hi; 


BACK  TO  THE  PEOPLE 


239 


national  duties  as  well  as  national  rights.  The  incompe- 
tency of  the  old  government  was  felt  in  that  under  it 
was  neither  direct  suffrage  nor  direct  representation  nor 
direct  legislation.  It  was  seen  that  all  state  right  federa- 
tions must  be  aristocratic  and  not  democratic  forms  of 
government  at  all.  The  whole  argument  of  the  Consti- 
tution, and  as  well  its  raison  d'etre,  deny  the  theory  of 
state  rights.  This  Constitution  nowhere  asserts,  nor 
implies,  that  each  state  acts  in  its  sovereign  independent 
character  as  in  the  Articles  of  Confederation  and  in 
the  Constitution  of  the  confederacy.  Nor  as  in  these 
instruments  does  it  anywhere  state  that  its  powers  are 
delegated  by  the  states  to  the  Constitution. 
The  tenth  amendment  says : 

The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the  Constitu- 
tion nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  states  are  reserved  to  the  states 
respectively  or  to  the  peL\  e. 

If  the  implication  in  the  words  "nor  prohibited  by 
it  to  the  states"  was  a  compromise  with  the  reactionary 
particularists  of  the  time,  the  same  amendment  still 
leaves  the  gateway  of  power  open  in  that  these  powers 
are  reserved  "to  the  people." 

Any  rational  construction  of  these  words  would  seem 
to  indicate  that  those  powers  which  concerned  sectional 
and  local  matters  are  left  to  the  states  where  they  belong. 
And  those  powers  wliich  concern  the  national  interest 
and  the  public  good — or  the  "general  welfare" — are 
reserved  "to  the  people."  The  strictest  constructionist 
might  accept  this. 

Any  other  view  amounts  to  the  state  right  theory  of 
South  Carolina,  the  theory  which  brought  on  the  Civil 


5* 


» 


240 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


War,  claiming  the  state  to  be  a  sovereign  member  of 
a  sovereign  union.  The  theory  is  the  theory  of  secession, 
which  is  the  theory  of  state  rights,  a  theory  which  derives 
no  authority  from  the  Constitution  itself. 

The  failure  of  the  Constitution  to  enumerate  powers 
the  necessity  for  which  the  framers  could  not  foresee, 
does  not  invalidate  those  powers,  otherwise  our  nation 
could  not  have  survived  to  this  day  and  could  not  now 
face  the  emergencies  of  future  time.  But  the  Consti- 
tution itself  has  provided  for  this  very  thing  in  spite  of 
the  theories. 

Article  IX  reads: 

The  enumeration  in  the  Constitutimi  of  certain  rights  shall  tiot 
be  construed  to  deny  or  discourage  others  retained  by  the  people. 

Note  that  it  does  not  read,  "others  retained  by  the 
states." 

Now,  as  to  these  other  powers,  or  rights,  not  enumer- 
ated in  the  Constitution  and  retained  by  the  people,  a 
vast  body  of  them  have  been  ordained  by  the  people 
through  supreme  judicial  construction,  through  supreme 
national  enactment,  through  executive  administration 
approved  by  the  people  and  not  prohibited  by  the  Consti- 
tution, and  finally  by  the  arbitrament  of  arms — these 
all  have  been  indemnified  by  the  people  as  fundamental 
law. 

Even  Jefferson  said  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, "The  United  States  of  America  .  .  .  have 
full  power  ...  to  do  all  other  acts  and  things  independ- 
ent states  may  of  right  do." 

How  anything  as  plain  as  Article  IX  of  the  Constitu- 
tion could  have  been  overlooked  so  perversely  and  so  long 


BACK  TO  THE  PEOPLE 


241 


is  a  curious  fact  in  an  intelligent  history.  It  is  a  clear 
statement  that  all  the  rights  of  the  people  are  not  enumer- 
ated and  that  those  omitted  are  not  disparaged  thereby. 
To  those  who  believe  that  ultimate  sovereignty  is  one  of 
the  rights  of  the  people  this  presents  a  clear  case. 

William  Blackstone  will  tell  you  that  "in  Britain 
(supreme,  absolute,  and  uncontrollable)  power  is  lodged 
in  the  British  Parliament.  .  .  .  The  truth  is,  that  in  our 
government  the  supreme,  absolute,  and  uncontrollable 
power  remains  with  the  people.  As  our  Constitutions 
are  superior  to  our  legislatures,  so  the  people  are  superior 
to  our  Constitutions  ...  the  consequence  is  that  the 
people  may  change  the  Constitutions  whenever  and 
wherever  they  please.  This  is  a  right  of  which  no  posi- 
tive institutions  can  ever  deprive  them"  (James  Wilson, 
Philadelphia  Convention,  1787). 

The  basis  of  Patrick  Henry's  passionate  opposition  to 
the  Constitution  in  the  Virginia  Convention  was  that 
the  Constitution  presented  a  consolidated  government — 
a  centralized  government,  instead  of  a  confederacy.  He 
objected  to  the  language  of  the  Preamble,  "IVe,  the 
People,"  instead  of  "IVe,  the  States,"  on  the  very  ground 
that  it  meant  that  the  states  were  not  to  be  parties  to  a 
compact,  but  that  the  people  were  to  be  the  parties  to 
one  great  synthesizing  consolidating  national  govern- 
ment. And  so  it  was.  Patrick  Henry  claimed  this  to 
be  revolutionary — as  if  that  were  argument  against  it, 
since  to  be  revolutionary  was  no  crime  to  him  so  short 
a  time  before.  Patrick  Henry  correctly  interpreted  the 
Preamble.  The  Preamble  to  the  Constitution  destroyed 
the  doctrine  of  state  rights  sacred  to  the  Articles  of 


■jy 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


Confederation  which  so  ingloriously  failed  to  consoli- 
date a  people  or  create  a  nation,  when  our  political  life 
was  so  precarious  as  to  cause  Washington  to  say  it  was 
"suspended  by  a  tiiread." 

Patrick  Henry  saw  what  Hamilton  had  already  seen, 
that  the  dominating  words  of  the  Constitution  were  its 
first  words:  "We,  the  People."  Henry  saw  what  Hamil- 
ton also  saw,  that  this  beginning  struck  the  note  which 
was  to  be  the  death  knell  of  state  rights.  One  saw  and 
feared,  the  other  saw  and  was  glad  that  another  revo- 
lution had  come  to  pass,  that  the  confederation  had 
passed  away  and  a  sovereign  nation  had  begun  to  be. 

And  then  when  the  fight  in  Virginia  was  won  the 
Convention  voted  that  tlie  powers  granted  under  the 
proposed  Federal  Constitution  are  the  gift  of  the  people 
and  that  every  power  not  granted  thereby  remains  with 
them  and  at  their  xvill. 

If  any  American  could  dispute  that  final  authority 
resides  in  the  sovereign  will  of  the  people,  surely  it  ought 
not  to  be  the  democrats  of  individualism,  who  have  made 
so  many  Fourth  of  July  orations  on  the  sovereign  will 
of  the  people.  Here  again  crops  up  that  inconsistency, 
in  wliich  they  do  not  seem  to  understand  the  bearing  of 
tiieir  own  claims,  in  which  their  individualism  surren- 
ders rationality  and  coherence.  However,  no  one  in  this 
country  will  dispute  the  statement  that  final  authority 
resides  in  the  will  of  the  people.  Nationalist  and  Indi- 
vidualist admit  it,  nay,  proclaim  it.  The  principle  of 
the  sovereignty  of  the  people  is  the  ground  of  all  self- 
government — national,  state,  or  individual  self-govern- 
ment.     But    the    issue   between   Nationalist   and    Indi- 


||f: 


III 


BACK  TO  THE  PEOPLE  243 

vidualist  was  once  whether  they  were  to  trace  the 
authority  of  the  Constitution  back  to  thirteen  separate 
centralized  entities  called  sovereign  states,  or  back  to  the 
whole  people  of  the  nation. 

Marshall  held  that  "the  government  proceeds  directly 
from  the  people,"  and  that  "its  powers  are  granted  by 
them  and  are  to  be  exercised  directly  on  them  for  their 
benefit,"  otherwise  the  Constitution  could  not  have  been 
what  James  Wilson,  of  Pennsylvania,  characterized  it, 
"the  charter  of  the  People's  nationality,"  or  what 
Marshall  himself  called  it,  "our  ordinance  of  national 
life." 

However  wrong  Jefferson  may  have  been  on  the  main 
issue,  he  had  one  sublime  instinct.  He  had  no  philosophy 
—no  consistency.  But  few  men  ever  testified  as  he  testi- 
fied to  the  sentiment  of  the  trustworthiness  of  the  com- 
mon people :  and  the  American  nation  never  would  have 
been  the  same  had  Jefferson  never  lived  or  had  he,  like 
Hamilton,  been  assassinated  in  his  youth.  The  nation 
needed  him.  It  can  hardly  be  held  successfully  that  it 
needed  so  much  of  him,  but  Jefferson's  instinct  to  keep 
the  government  close  to  the  people  was  sound.  His 
instincts  were  better  than  his  logic. 

The  curious  thing  is  that  such  theory  as  he  had  was 
false,  false  to  his  instinct  and  ready  to  thwart  his  aims. 
It  was  the  theory  of  Hamilton  and  Washington,  of  a 
government  more  or  less  self -centralized,  which  was  to 
hold  the  nation  together  and  prevent  the  real  centraliza- 
tion of  arbitrary  power  in  the  uncontrolled  preying  of 
the  strong  upon  the  weak.  It  was  Hamilton's  philosophy 
which  safe-guarded  the  instinct  of  Jefferson.    Washing- 


■  I ,     ;  ■ 


244 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


ton  knew  that  ''influence  is  not  government."  Jefferson 
never  knew  that  "sentiment  is  not  government,"  that 
sentiment  without  government  is  anarchy,  and  that  under 
anarchy  the  big  eat  the  little,  and  that  under  anarchy 
there  can  be  no  free  people.  As  it  was  the  Hamiltonian 
philosophy  which  annihilated  state  sovereignty  and  estab- 
lislied  a  government  directly  from  the  people  and  not 
through  the  states,  so  it  was  the  Hamiltonian  philosophy 
later  \'  hich  abolished  human  slavery  and  vindicated  real 
democracy  and  the  right  of  all  to  life  and  liberty  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness.  It  is  to-day  the  Hamiltonian 
philosophy  which  is  the  champion  of  the  people  and  all 
the  people,  against  the  rapine  of  anarchy  and  against  the 
uncontrolled  exploitation  of  the  uncontrollable  central- 
ization of  predatory  wealtli. 


CHAPTER  V 

A  WORD  ABOUT  SOVEREIGNTY 

It  was  one  of  the  great  days  in  the  nation's  history 
when  John  Marshall  ascended  the  Supreme  Bench,  called 
there  just  a  few  hours  before  Jefferson  became  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States— Jefferson,  who,  had  Adams 
not  appointed  Marshall  just  at  this  time,  would  have 
appointed  an  entirely  different  kind  of  man;  and  it  is 
probable  that  the  whole  future  development  of  the 
United  States  would  have  been  changed  in  its  direction 
and  course  forever.  One  of  the  first  things  Marshall 
did  was  to  settle  by  his  adamantine  reasoning  the  status 
of  the  Supreme  Judiciary  itself.  He  affirmed  that  this 
judiciary  has  the  right  to  construe  an  issue  and  to  decide 
what  is  the  law  which  governs  in  any  given  case.  U 
the  terms  of  the  Constitution  and  those  of  any  legis- 
lative enactment  conflict  the  Court  must  decide  whether 
it  will  follow  the  Constitution  or  the  legislative  act. 
"But  it  is  essential,"  says  Marshall,  "to  all  written  Con- 
stitutions that  a  law  repugnant  to  the  Constitution  is 
void,  and  that  the  Courts,  as  well  as  the  other  depart- 
ments, are  bound  by  that  instrument."  Then  how 
else  could  he  construe  but  according  to  the  fundamental 
law? 

As  to  the  state  rights  contention,  the  principle  is  dis- 
tinctly announced  and  established,  and  is  no  longer  ques- 
tioned, that  any  enactment  of  any  state,  or  even  of  the 
national  legislature  in  conflict  with  the  Constitution,  is 

245 


240 


th:-:  new  politics 


void,  and  tliat  it  is  within  the  power  of  the  judiciary 
to  determine  this. 

These  two  principles  have  been  accepted  as  the  expres- 
sion of  the  will  of  the  American  people  as  distinctive 
American   fundamental  law.     Marshall  established  this 
principle  in  spite  of  the  angry  and  violent  opposition  of 
Jefferson.     The  principle  has  stood  to  this  day,  because 
Marshall's  reasons  for  supporting  it  were  final.     In  the 
summing  up  of  the  argument  in  the  celebrated  case  of 
McCulloch  versus    laryland,  in  1819.  Marshall  outlined 
the  situation  in  an  unanswerable  way.     He  held  that  a 
Constitution  as  prolix  as   a  legal  code  containing  an 
"accurate  detail  of  all  the  subdivisions  of  which  its  great 
powers  will  admit,"  could  "hardly  be  embraced  by  the 
human  mind"  and  "never  be  understood  by  the  public." 
"Its  nature,  therefore,  requires  that  only  its  great  out- 
lines should  be  marked,  its  important  objects  designated, 
and  the  minor  ingredients  which  compose  those  objects 
be  deduced  from  the  nature  of  the  objects  themselves." 
"Let  the  end  be  legitimate,  let  it  be  within  the  scope  of 
the  Constitution,  and  all  means  which  are  appropriate, 
which  are  plainly  adapted  to  that  end,  which  are  not  pro- 
hibited, but  consist  with  tlie  letter  and  spirit  of  that  Con- 
stitution, are  constitutional." 

The  struggle  for  American  nationality  is  one  of  the 
crowning  struggles  of  the  human  race.  That  the  ini- 
tiative of  Washington's  administration  was  in  the  direc- 
tion of  sound  nationality,  was  no  more  fortunate  than 
that  when  the  Jeffersonian  reaction  began,  Marshall  on 
the  Supreme  Bench  grasjied  with  such  clearness  and  ex- 
pounded  with   such   irrefutable   logic   the    fundamental 


■■»»>>  i 

m 


A  WORD  ABOUT  SOVERKIGNTY        247 

principles  (and  it  is  the  literal  minded  strict  construc- 
tionist who  fails  to  grasp  them),  that  if  sovereignty  was 
delegated  it  was  surrendered  and  by  the  people,  not  the 
states,  and  to  a  sovereign  instrument;  that  the  people, 
not  the  states,  made  the  Constitution,  and  the  Constitu- 
tion made  the  national  government;  that  this  instrument 
holds  powers  sufficient  for  all  the  needs  and  purposes 
of  a  national  government ;  and  that  anything  less  would 
defeat  the  aims  of  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  and 
the  founders  of  the  nation,  and  would  prove  inadequate 
to  the  multiplying  needs  of  a  sovereign  people. 

The  Articles  of  Confederation  formed  a  union  of 
states.  The  Constitution  of  the  Southern  Confederacy 
made  a  union  of  states.  But  the  National  Consti- 
tution is  a  bond  of  union  of  the  People  of  the  United 
States. 

To  my  mind  there  is  nothing  Marshall  ever  said  more 
fundamental,  more  vital,  or  more  true  than  this : 

"The  people  made  the  Constitution,  and  the  people 
can  unmake  it.  It  is  the  creature  of  their  own  will  and 
lives  by  their  own  will.  But  this  supreme  and  irresistible 
power  to  make  or  unmake  resides  only  in  the  body  of 
the  people,  not  in  any  subdivision  of  them.  The  attempt 
of  any  of  the  parts  to  execute  it  is  usurpation  and  ought 
to  be  repelled  by  those  to  zvhom  the  people  have  delegated 
the  power  of  repelling  it." 

What  a  different  note  from  that  of  Buchanan,  with 

the  nation  on  the  verge  of  civil  war,  who,  in  his  message 

of  December,  i860,  while  denying  the  right  of  secession, 

declared  that  Congress  had  no  right  to  coerce  a  state. 

President  Francis  A.   Walker    (The  Making  of  the 


248  THE  NEW  POLITICS 

Nation,  p.  253)  interprets  Marshall's  theory  of  the  Con- 
stitution as  an  instrument  under  which  the  national 
government  is  not  limited  in  its  agencies  or  methods,  and 
has  "free  choice  among  all  means  not  expressly  forbid- 
den in  the  Constitution,  which  are  reasonable,  expedient, 
and  politic  means  to  those  ends."  Marshall  expanded 
"the  frame  of  the  government  to  its  proper  propor- 
tions." 

Hamilton's  doctrine  of  implied  powers  is  more 
familiar;  that  "if  the  power  is  necessary  to  the  purpose 
of  the  Constitution  it  may  be  implied  from  powers 
expressed." 

The  final  establishment  of  this  principle  throufjh  con- 
struction, one  of  the  most  important  achievements  of 
American  jurisprudence,  settles  the  question  as  to  lati- 
tude of  construction  and  as  to  the  elasticity  and  not  ri- 
gidity of  that  ultimate  instrument,  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  It  established  forever,  or  at  least  so  long 
as  the  Constitution  shall  endure,  the  principle  of  develop- 
ment and  the  possibility  of  development  in  spite  of  that 
class  of  minds  which  would  fetter  a  growing  vital  virile 
present  to  the  corpse  of  an  age  a  hundred  years  dead. 

Moreover,  it  established  not  only  the  fact  that  powers 
enough  have  been  delegated  to  the  Constitution,  whether 
by  the  states  or  by  the  people,  to  confer  on  the  Union 
all  the  powers  of  national  sovereignty,  but  that  this 
sovereignty  lies  in  the  will  of  the  people— the  whole 
people— not  in  thirteen  or  forty-eight  peoples;  and 
that  of  the  whole  people  the  ultimate  oracle  is  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States :  that  this  Constitution  is  the 
instrument  of  one  State,  and  not  forty-eight  states. 


A  WORD  ABOUT  SOVEREIGNTY        249 
Marshall  had  .aid  that  the  people  can  make  Consti- 
tnt.ons  or  unmake  them.    The  strict  constructionist,  who 
.nay  object  to  doctrine  so  revolutionary.  ,s  referred  to  the 
fact  that  with  an  inconsistency  characteristic  of  a  party 
.vh.rh  shouted  that  all  men  were  created  free  and  equal 
and  tought  the  Civil  War  to  uphold  human  slavery  and 
state  sovereignty,  Mr.  JeflFerson  and  his  followers,  advo- 
cated a  Constitution  elastic  enough  to  be  changed  every 
nmeteen  years;  that  the  majority  should  make  the  Con- 
stitution "what  they  think  will  be  best  for  themselves  " 
and  as  it  were  in  the  same  breath,  pleaded  for  a  strict- 
ness ,n  construction,  for  a  rigidity  of  Constitution  which 
would  make  reform  exceedingly  difficult  and  progress 
all  but  impossible. 

It  will  be  urged  by  the  strict  constructionist  that  pro- 
v'ision  has  been  made  for  changes  in  the  Constitution 
through  amendment.  Quite  true.  But  an  amendment 
to  the  Constitution  is  now  almost  an  impossibility.  Pro- 
vision has  been  made  also  for  change  through  construc- 
tion—of  legislature,  executive,  and  judiciary. 

I  fancy  there  is  no  one  to-day  to  question  the  consti- 
tutionality of  a  vast  number  of  legislative  projects  "to 
promote  the  general  welfare,"  and  which  have  no  consti- 
tutional ground  outside  th^  fact  that  the  entire  nation 
has  acquiesced  in  what  we  may  call  legislative,  or  judi- 
cuil,  or  executive  amendments  to  the  Constitution,  which 
before  the  Civil  War  would  have  been  passionately  and 
almost  unanimously  opposed.     It  is  impossibl.e  to  recon- 
cile the  attitude  of  the  strict  constructionalists  with  the 
mcreasing  body  of  laws  enacted  for  the  public  better- 
ment.    How  are  we  to  consider  this  increasing  bodv  of 


S*'tlV 


■?i't 


250 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


law  finding  its  expression,  if  we  take  a  classical  example, 
in  the  whole  recent  conservation  movement  of  the  United 
States  passed  by  the  sovereign  power  of  a  sovereign 
nation,  ratified  by  the  executive,  acquiesced  in  by  the 
Supreme  Court,  applauded  by  the  whole  people,  with 
no  specific  warrant  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  unless  these  acts  are  to  be  considered  in  lieu  of 
amendments  to  the  Constitution,  as  an  expansion  of  that 
Constitution?  Does  not  the  state  right  theory  trip  on 
this  snag? 

Suppose  every  legislative  act  to  "promote  the  general 
welfare,"  for  which  there  are  not  specific  powers  men- 
tioned in  the  Constitution,  were  wiped  out  by  the  Supreme 
Court?  What  would  we  have  left?  Not  a  nation, 
surely. 

I  fear  these  state  right  delegationists  have  mixed  their 
authorities.  I  do  not  find  a  body  of  doctrine  in  the 
Constitution  justifying  their  claim.  I  do  find  their 
theories  certified  in  the  Articles  of  Confederation  and  in 
the  Constitution  of  the  late  Confederate  States.  I 
quote  from  the  Articles  of  Confederation  of  1781  against 
which  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  the 
protest  of  the  people  of  the  nation: 

Article  II: 

Each  state  retains  its  sovereignty,  freedom,  and  independence, 
and  every  power,  jurisdiction,  and  right  which  is  not  by  this  con- 
federation expressly  delegated  to  the  United  States  in  Congress 
assembled. 

I  read  the   Preamble  of  the  Confederate  States  of 

America,  1861 : 

We,  the  people  of  the  Confederate  States,  each  state  acting  in 
its  sovereign  and  independent  character,  in  order  to  form,  etc. 


A  WORD  ABOUT  SOVEREIGNTY        251 

But  I  read  in  the  Preamble  to  the  Federal  Consti- 
tution : 

"WE,  THE  PEOPLE  of  the  United  States"  (that  is  the  way  the 
Constitution  begins  and  spells  "WE.  THE  PEOPLE"  in  enormous 
old  German  letters)  "in  order  to  form  a  more  perfect  union"; 
(that  is  the  first  purpose  mentioned  before  the  establishment  of 
justice  or  securing  the  blessings  of  liberty)  "WE,  THE  PEOPLE 
...  do  ordain  and  establish  this  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  of  America." 

The  Montgomery  Convention  was  found  explicitly 
acknowledging  the  principle  of  state  rights  and  dele- 
gated powers.  The  Confederacy  was  formed  because 
the  Federal  Constitution  did  not  so  ordain.  The  South- 
ern leaders  claimed  to  have  been  satisfied  with  the 
Federal  Constitution,  but  for  "too  loose  an  interpreta- 
tion," though  no  kind  of  construction  can  find  the  prin- 
ciple of  state  rij,  s  (which  of  course  means  state  sov- 
ereignty)  in  the  Constitutior'  of  the  United  States. 

It  is  not  altogether  parenthetical  to  state  here  that  the 
Constitution  of  the  Confederacy  is  a  consistent  exposi- 
tion of  the  philosophy  of  individualism.  For  example, 
practically  everything  in  the  way  of  state  action  "to 
promote  the  general  welfare"  was  prohibited.  It  ex- 
pressed clearly  the  democratic  theory  of  the  state.  The 
state  had  no  moral  mission.  The  sphere  of  national  self- 
government  was  very  much  restricted,  all  but  annihilated. 
The  principle  of  nationality  was  annihilated. 

It  was  because  the  South  wanted  to  annihilate  this 
principle  that  it  tried  to  destroy  the  Union.  Protective 
tariffs  were  prohibited,  as  were  all  internal  improve- 
ments at  the  public  expense.  Grant  the  soundness  of 
their  political  philosophy  and  you  must  justify  secession. 


pi 


if* 


252 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


Indeed,  it  is  an  interesting  fact  that  democrats — those 
who  are  consistent  individualists — liave  always  arrayed 
themselves  against  the  ethical  enlargement  of  the  sphere 
of  the  state — "to  promote  the  general  welfare."  The  vast 
mass  of  constructive  state-building  to  the  credit  of  the 
constitutional  party  in  the  extension  of  the  public  con- 
trol over  the  common  good,  has  been  pronounced  uncon- 
stitutional by  every  strict  constructionist  and  held  as 
pern  '■ious,  theoretically,  by  every  democrat  of  individ- 
ualism, although  advocated  and  voted  for  when  it  was 
good  policy  to  do  so. 

Jefferson  stated  the  issue  clearly: 

"Our  tenet  ever  was,  and,  indeed,  it  is  the  only  land- 
mark which  now  divides  the  Federalists  from  the  Repub- 
licans, that  Congress  had  not  unlimited  powers  to  provide 
for  the  general  welfare,  but  were  restrained  to  those 
specifically  enumerated." 

"Henceforth."  says  Schouler,  after  quoting  the  above, 
"our  national  parties  were  to  fight  one  another  upon  the 
issue,  not  of  constitutional  change,  but  of  constitutional 
construction,  public  opinion  being  the  only  recognized 
arbiter.  From  1804  to  1865.  a  period  of  much  contro- 
versy, culminating  in  Civil  War.  not  a  single  consti- 
tutional amendment  was  proposed  by  the  American 
Congress  to  the  states  for  adoption;  and  the  thirteenth 
amendment  of  tliis  latter  date  registered  and  confirmed 
a  decree  which  the  sword  had  already  executed  without 
positive  sanction." 

Is  it  not  time  to  reexamine  our  opinions  of  the  Con- 
stitution and  this  question  of  sovereignty  from  some 
other  than  a  lawyer's  standpoint? 


A  WORD  ABOUT  SOVEREIGNTY 


253 


Each  generation  must  have  its  own  point  of  view. 
Is  it  not  time  for  the  generation  which  was  born  since 
the  Civil  War  to  state  its  case  ? 

There  is  a  growing  party  who  believe  in  national  self- 
government  and  in  state,  county,  or  individual  self- 
government  as  supplementary  and  not  opposed  thereto. 

We  conceive  of  our  fundamental  law  as  having 
proceeded  from  the  people.  These  "people"  are  not 
thirteen  original  states.  These  "people"  are  not  merely 
the  people  of  the  thirteen  original  states.  They  are  the 
people  who  enacted  the  Constitution  before  they  died, 
and  who  construe  the  Constitution  while  we  are  living — 
we  the  people. 

Professor  Hart  has  stated  the  case  for  the  modern 
American  who  believes  in  American  Nationality.  "The 
correct  view  of  American  Government  is  that  every  form 
of  government,  national,  state,  or  local,  emanates  from 
the  same  authority — namely,  the  people  of  the  United 
States.  The  fundamental  basis  of  American  Govern- 
ment is  the  right  of  a  people  to  organize  and  form 
governments  for  themselves"  (Actual  Government,  p. 
51).  He  might  have  added  that  the  fundamental  basis 
of  American  Government  holds  the  right  to  construe 
according  to  the  needs  of  the  living  rather  than  in  defer- 
ence to  the  dead. 

Are  the  states  nations?  Is  the  National  Government 
their  agent? 

It  has  taken  over  a  hundred  years  to  answer  this  ques- 
tion, and  the  question  is  not  yet  answered  if  the  present 
state  right  contentions  be  well  grounded,  and  if  there  is 
an  area  over  which  neither  state  nor  nation  exercises 


254  THE  NEW  POLITICS 

sovereign  control.     The  nationalist  maintains  that  the 

American  nation  is  a  sovereign  nation. 

Sovereignty  means  supremacy.  It  involves  a  dominion 
subject  to  no  otlier  dominion.  It  has  authority  and  force 
subsidiary  to  no  other  authority  or  force.  The  nation 
involves  powers  actually  belonging  separately  to  none  of 
the  forty-eight  individual  states. 

Lincoln  once  defined  sovereignty  adequately  for  all 
practical  purposes.  He  says.  "Would  it  not  do  to  say 
that  it  is  a  political  community  without  a  political  supe- 
rior?" He  said  further,  "Tested  by  this  no  one  state 
except  Texas  ever  was  a  sovereignty." 

Assume  sovereignty  of  the  nation.  Has  it  a  political 
superior  in  the  'sovereign"  state?  Assuredly  not.  Has 
it  even  an  equal  in  the  "sovereign"  state?    No. 

Assume  sovereignty  of  the  state.  Has  it  a  superior? 
Assuredly  it  has.  Is  it  even  the  equal  of  the  nation  in 
authority  and  power  to  enforce  that  authority?  In- 
deed no.     No  state  "sovereignty"  measures  up  to  that 

test. 

No  state  possesses  this  supreme  power,  A  state  can- 
not even  carry  the  mails.  It  cannot  coin  money,  impose 
tariff  dues.  It  cannot  grant  patents  or  copyrights.  It 
cannot  maintain  a  navy,  nor  can  it  declare  war  or  peace, 
nor  enter  into  a  treaty  with  a  foreign  power ;  it  cannot 
secede.  Why?  Simply  and  solely  because  it  is  not  of 
itself  a  sovereign  power. 

The  legislature  of  a  state  cannot  be  said  to  exercise 
supreme  legislation  when  the  very  citizens  of  that  state 
owe  first  obedience  to  the  laws  made  by  another  power, 
and  when  the  codes  of  their  lawmakers  are  null  and  void 


A  WORD  ABOUT  SOVEREIGNTY        255 

if  in  conflict  with  the  laws  made  by  another  power  than 
that  of  their  state  or  the  people  of  their  state. 

The  courts  of  a  state  cannot  be  said  to  exercise  supreme 
judicial  power  when  their  very  magistrates  are  sworn  to 
disregard  the  laws  of  their  own  state  when  they  are  in 
conflict  with  another  law  passed  by  another  and  higher 
legislature,  and  are  subject  to  construction  by  another 
and  higher  tribunal. 

The  very  Constitution  of  a  state  is  not  sovereign,  for 
it  is  only  operative  when  in  consonance  with  another 
Constitution  of  another  and  higher  authority.* 

These  are  some  of  the  powers  without  which  the  claim 
of  sovereignty  is  a  ridiculous  if  not  an  impudent  asser- 
tion; powers  which  the  people  long  ago  stripped  from  the 
stales  with  the  confederation  and  wove  as  one  garment 
into  the  Constitution  to  cover  one  people  of  one  nation. 
Sovereign    power    involves    supreme    authority    and 
force.    The  supreme  law  involves  the  supreme  sanction. 
There  are  no  sovereign  states,  because  no  state  possesses 
a  sovereign  law  with  a  supreme  sanction.    This  question 
was  thought  to  have  been  left  open  by  the  compromises 
of  the  Constitution  and  certain  states  once  alleged  of  them- 
selves sovereignty  and  seceded.    It  was  a  question  then, 
at  last,  no  longer  of  sovereign  law  or  sovereign  construc- 
tion of  law,  but  of  sovereign  sanction.    This  question  was 
passed  up  to  the  next  highest  of  all  tribunals— the  arbi- 
trament of  arms.    The  Civil  War  settled  the  question  of 
state   sovereignty.      The  Civil  War   was   the   ultimate 
amendment  to  the  Constitution.    It  settled  the  question 
of  sovereignty. 

■  Andrew  Jackaon. 


m 


256 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  not  merely 
the  document  so  called.  It  is  that  instrument  plus  the 
construction  in  many  volumes  of  the  decisions  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  plus  the  construction 
of  the  people  of  the  United  States  on  the  fields  of  battle, 
where  they  decided  that  the  nation  is  one  nation,  not  a 
confederation  of  states,  and  that  the  whole  is  greater 
than  any  of  its  parts. 

Back  of  this  whole  question  of  Nationalism  is  the 
question  of  authority.  Where  lies  sovereignty  over  the 
areas  unforeseen  and  unprovided  for  in  state  or  national 
institutions — as  to  the  interstate? 

Where  lies  sovereignty  over  those  areas  of  anarchy 
between  the  states  ?    The  e.xtra-state  as  it  were  ? 

The  question  of  sovereignty  is  not  one  of  rights.  It 
may  be  one  of  right,  but  ultimately  it  is  a  question  of 
final  authority.  Final  authority  rests  with  the  whole 
people  of  the  nation  whose  ultimate  instrument  is  the 
Constitution.  This  Constitution  was  the  beginning  not 
merely  of  union.  That  had  been  established  by  the  Con- 
federation. The  Constitution  went  further.  It  became 
the  supreme  law  of  a  sovereign  people. 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE   NATIONAL  PARTY 

Side  by  side  with  the  revolutionary  ideas  into  which 
this  nation  was  born  another  idea  has  been  growing  from 
the  very  beginning  of  our  national  existence.  //  is  the 
national  idea. 

The  history  of  political  parties  in  the  United  States 
dates  from  the  moment  when  men  began  to  draw  the 
line  between  "Strong  Government"  men  and  "the  Par- 
ticularists"  ;  those  who  advocated  and  those  who  opposed 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
The  Constitution  once  adopted,  the  party  lines  defined 
the  position  of  those  believing  in  a  liberal  construction 
which  gave  the  National  Government  greater  power, 
and  those  who  opposed  it.  The  "Particularists"  of  1781 
became  tlie  Anti-Federalists  of  1787.  The  Anti-Federal- 
ists of  1787  became  the  Confederacy  of  i860.  The 
Washingtonians  and  Hamiltonians  of  1787  became  a 
Nationalist  party. 

Every  day,  for  over  a  hundred  years,  the  American 
people  have  been  moving  away  from  the  crass  individual- 
ism of  the  two  revolutions,  from  particularism  to  Nation- 
alism, and  in  the  direction  of  the  democracy  of  altruism. 
Even  the  practical  statecraft  of  our  fathers  saw  that 
anarchy  was  no  fitting  foundation  for  a  rational  state, 
when  individualism  surrendered  its  purity  reluctantly 
to  government  as  a  necessary  evil.  There  is  much  said 
of  rights  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence — nothing  of 

»S1 


el  , 
r' 

■»"• 

^   i 

i 


5 
«i^j 


^58 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


duties.  A  centur>'  and  a  quarter  have  shown  its  inade- 
quacy as  a  political  philosophy.  We  compromised  our 
rights  and  recognized  our  duties  when  we  adopted  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

If  there  is  any  one  tiling  which  will  characterize  the 
last  half  of  the  eighteenth  and  the  first  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth centuries  in  history,  it  is  perhaps  the  irresistible 
progress  of  the  democracy  of  individualism.     The  next 
fifty  years  furnishes  notably  the  fields  where  solidarity 
fights  out   its  battles  on   nationalistic   lines  in  United 
Germany,  United  Italy,  and  Great  Britain;  and  in  the 
United  States  when  in  the  sixties  we  were  kept  from 
being  broken  in  two— perhaps  more.     In  England  and 
America,  however,  the  nineteenth  century  has  been  par- 
ticularly the  scene  of  conflict  between  the  democracy  of 
individualism  and  the  democracy  of  nationalism.     It 
was  not  until  after  the  Civil  War  in  the  United  States 
that  the  idea  became  in  any  large  and  real  sense  the 
fundamental  American  idea,  and  even  then  it  was  not 
recognized — even  now  it  is  not  sufficiently  recognized. 
Nevertheless,  the  national  idea  has  been  transforming 
the  American  state.     It  has  been  informing  and  mold- 
ing our  legislation  and   administration.     It   has  been 
molding  our  history.     It   has  been  shaping  the  very 
conditions  of  American  life. 

In  spite  of  all  the  theories  of  state  rights  and  their 
corollaries  which  were  held  ry  the  vast  majority  of  the 
people  (and  are  indeed  to  this  day),  as  well  as  by  the 
very  inherent  logical  necessities  of  the  case,  the  fact  of 
national  sovereignty  has  been  growing  from  the  day  the 
Const>'^*ion  was  adopted  until  the  present  time.    In  one 


THE  NATIONAL  PARTY 


259 


way  or  unother,  whenever  American  politics  sees  fit  to 
revert  to  a  principle,  which  is  not  often,  it  comes  back 
somehow  to  this  line  of  cleavage  which  during  the  whole 
history  of  the  republic  has  divided  clearly  the  Particular- 
ists  from  the  Nationalists. 

There  is,  perhaps,  no  better  illustration  of  what  I  mean 
than  that  found  in  the  gradual  encroachment,  I  may  say 
ethical  encroachment,  of  the  sphere  of  state  action  over 
the  area  of  personal  liberty ;  or  in  other  words,  over  the 
area  of  anarchy.  If  the  beginnings  of  the  government 
were  founded  on  principles  as  near  anarchy  as  those 
upon  which  probably  those  of  any  other  government  has 
ever  been  founded,  we  must  remember  that  the  very  age 
itself  was  one  of  revolution. 

The  dividing  line  between  the  two  real  parties  of  the 
United  States  is  that  which  separates  nationalism  from 
particularism.  If  our  party  platforms  will  not  disclose 
this  boundary,  let  there  be  a  new  national  party  which 
will.  Let  us  have  a  party  built  on  principles,  not  inter- 
ests. Whenever  it  has  appeared  that  such  an  issue  might 
be  made  there  have  been  those  ready  to  obscure  the  real 
issue  and  start  the  claque  for  economy  or  the  tariflf 
or  some  other  policy  which  is  not  fundamental,  like 
Alcibiades,  when  he  bought  a  beautiful  dog  and  cut  oflF 
its  tail,  "to  give  the  Athenians  something  to  talk  about," 
he  said,  "so  that  they  won't  talk  about  the  other  things 
I  want  to  do."  So  modern  politicians  and  bosses 
divert  the  people  to-day  by  confusing  the  issue.  There 
can  never  be  a  free  trade  party  in  this  country  again 
which  will  be  more  than  a  negligible  quantity,  yet  the 
day  of  legislating   for  the  "infant   industry"   is  done. 


# 


--ii 


26o  THE  NHW  POLITICS 

VVlien  we  no  longer  have  to  protect  ourselves  from 
Europe  we  must  protect  ourselves  from  Asia.  Already 
a  hundred  millions  more  than  half  the  human  race,  who 
can  live  on  nothing  a  day  and  board  themselves,  have 
enteretl  the  lists  as  producers  as  well  as  consumers,  and 
our  much  vaunted  trade  with  the  Orient  is  not  only 
already  doomed,  but  we  have  the  most  ominous  problem 
of  the  twentieth  cemury  to  solve,  if  we  save  white  labor, 
and  Western  civilization,  and  the  Christian  white  man's 
standard  of  living  from  utter  annihilation. 

The  tariff  problem  is  on  its  way  out  of  politics.  Some 
day  it  will  be  in  the  hands  of  scientists  and  there  will 
be  stability  in  business,  and  there  never  will  be  stability 
in  business  until  the  tariff  is  out  of  politics  and  is  in  the 
hands  of  scientists  and  its  main  outlines  at  least  are  set- 
tled as  national,  not  as  party  measures. 

The  real  issue  to-day  is  and  always  has  been  the  one 
between  state  rights  and  no  duties  on  the  one  hand,  and 
national  rights  and  duties  on  the  other.     I  mean  state 
rights  interpreted  as  state  sovereignty.     No  one  of  any 
intellectual  weight  has  ever  assailed  the  principle  of  state 
rights   interpreted   as   a  matter  of   local   rights.     The 
nationalist  denies  state  sovereignty.    He  denies  the  prin- 
ciple thai  we  harbor  an  area  of  anarchy  between  the 
states,  or  between  the  nation  and  the  states  where  there 
is  no  Constitution  and  no  law— an  area  of  immunity 
from  crime  where  with  impunity  the  big  can  eat  the 
little  and  cannot  be  caught  and  punished.    The  principle 
of  local  self-government  is  more  sacred  to  the  national- 
ist than  to  the  particular ist,  because  he,  and  not  the  par- 
ticularism demands  that  there  shall  Ih>  none  of  the  affairs 


THE  NATIONAL  PARTY 


261 


nf  men  in  our  Republic  where  there  shall  be  no  self- 
government. 

There  are  those  who  l)elieve  that  this  nation  is  simply 
the  agent   of   forty-eight    separate   sovereignties   called 
states.    The  nationalist  believes  that  there  is  one  national 
sovereignty  for  all  national  and  interstate  or  extrastatc 
concerns.     Rut  he  demands  ♦hat  the  affairs  of  the  state 
shall  be  run  by  the  state;  tha.  municipal  affairs  shall  be 
administered  by  the  municipality ;  that  the  affairs  of  the 
individual  are  the  concern  of  the  individual  and  that 
in  this  sphere  each  man  can  attend  to  his  own  business. 
The  nationalist  hokk  .0  the  dual  principle,  qua  principle 
as  well  as  qua  expediency.     He  insists  on  local  self- 
government.     But  he  denies  the  validity  of  local  self- 
government  in  those  muhiplying  affairs  which  pertain 
to  our  larger  relations  between  sections  far  apart,  and  in 
those  which  pertain  to  ourselves  as  units  of  a  great  new 
bom  organic  world  power.     He  denies  the  principle  of 
national  government  piecemeal.     In  short,  he  claims  that 
all  rights  and  all  duties— all  affairs— which  properly  may 
be  classified  as  national  affairs,  must  fall  under  the  aegis 
of  the  national  fundamental  law.     It  signifies  nothing 
that  powers  are  not  specifically  mentioned  in  the  Consti- 
tution to  cover  issues  and  events  which  could  not  have  been 
foreseen  by  the  cherubim  and  seraphim  a  hundred  years 
ago.     The  twentieth  century  must  meet  its  own  is.sues 
and  state  its  own  creed.    Justice  Wilson  (nee  said.  "The 
general  government  is  not  an  assemblage  of  states,  but 
of  individuals  for  certain  political  purposes"  (vide  Doc. 
Hist.  Const.    HI,   208-9,   250).     What  are  those  cer- 
tain political  purposes?     Let  Wilson  answer.     "Whert- 


m 


262 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


ever  an  object  occurs,  to  the  direction  of  which  no 
particular  State  is  competent,  the  management  of  it  must 
of  necessity  belowj  to  the  United  States  in  Congress 
assembled"  (quoted  by  lilliott ). 

This  is  a  reversal  of  that  contention  that  the  states 
have  jurisdiction  over  all  objects  not  enumerated  in  the 
Constitution.  "Whatever,"  says  Elliott  (Story  of  Con- 
stitution, p.  70).  of  Wilson's  views,  "in  its  nature  and 
operation  extended  beyond  the  individual  State  ought 
to  be  comprehended  within  the  Federal  jurisdiction." 

The  national  party  has  enacted  more  rational  and 
ethical  legislation  than  any  other  political  party  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  excepting,  possibly,  the  reform 
party  in  New  Zealand.  Every  ethical  law,  every  act 
advancing  human  welfare  which  this  party  has  written 
on  the  statute  books  of  state  or  nation,  without  a  single 
exception,  has  been  away  from  individualism  and  toward 
the  enlargement  of  the  sphere  of  the  state — toward  the 
centralization  and  moralization  of  its  powers.  It  has 
carried  out  the  principle  of  solidarity  and  nationalism 
conceived  by  George  Washington  and  Alexander  Ham- 
ilton as  an  oflfset  to  the  anarchical  tendency  of  Jefferson 
— tendencies  much  needed  in  their  day,  but  which  in  their 
day  fulfilled  their  mission,  and  in  the  sixties  more  than 
fulfilled  their  mission.  The  untimely  assassination  of 
Hamihon  gave  the  forces  of  individualism  an  impetus 
which  resulted  in  the  Civil  War,  and  which  twrenty  years 
more  of  his  constructive  and  organizing  effort  might  have 
checked.  When  the  struggle  came  and  the  disintegrating 
forces  of  our  political  institutions  bad  gathered  them- 


Wi 


THE  NATIONAL  PARTY 


263 


selves,  such  an  appeal  was  made  to  altruism  as  has  sel- 
dom, if  ever,  been  equaled  in  the  political  history  of 
mankind.  The  national  party  was  the  embodiment  of 
the  ethical  force  and  sentiment  which  organized  itself 
to  respond ;  to  hammer  the  shackles  off  three  million 
slaves,  and  to  prevent  individualism  from  breaking  the 
nation  in  two. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  first  a  pro- 
test against  the  policies  of  chance  and  the  politics  of 
drift  on  which  the  ill-formed  nation  was  swiftly  hasten- 
ing toward  dissolution.  There  was  nowhere  a  common 
end  or  aim,  nowhere  the  recognition  of  a  common  life 
and  a  common  good,  nowhere  a  constructive  and  funda- 
mental idea. 

The  Constitution  was  enacted  to  outline,  not  fulfill,  the 
fundamental  idea;  to  make  one  nation  out  of  thirteen; 
to  recognize  the  principle  of  the  common  good  and  to 
"promote  the  general  welfare."  It  is  a  set  of  principles, 
not  a  set  of  rules. 

These  are  the  traditions  upon  which  the  party  of 
Nationalism  was  founded ;  these  the  principles  the  party 
has  been  slowly  and  surely  working  out  from  the  day 
the  Constitution  was  ratified  until  the  present  time. 
These  are  the  ideas  it  has  stood  for  and  these  constitute 
its  raison  d'etre. 

If  it  has  departed  now  and  then  from  this  principle  it 
is  because  the  plunderers  of  individualism  have  sought  to 
turn  this  great  instrument  of  altruistic  power  to  serve 
their  individual  greed. 

This  is  the  principle  it  opposes  to  the  particularist 
theory  of  government,  which  is  the  policeman's  theory — 


k,  ' 


I 


264 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


no  more.  The  national  party  stands  for  an  ethical 
democracy,  which  means  the  extension  of  the  government 
ethically  for  the  good  of  all  tiie  people.  It  believes,  by 
instituting  rational  and  ethical  forms,  that  through  tiiese 
and  by  means  of  these  the  whole  people,  acting  together 
with  intelligent  aim,  can  better  achieve  the  objects  of  their 
existence  ( unless  it  be  conceded  that  the  aggrandizement 
of  the  clawman  is  the  object  of  existence)  than  can  the 
individual  units  of  tlie  multitude,  in  a  mad  and  untram- 
meled  scramble,  not  working  together  and  working  with- 
out aim  or  reason  except  as  each  one  is  propelled  to  the 
acquisition  of  materialistic  possession,  driven  by  the 
blind  instinct  of  self-interest. 

The  party  of  Nationalism  has  recognized  the  principle 
that,  whatever  might  have  been  the  outlook  and  purposes, 
and  indeed  the  limitations  of  the  "fatliers"  in  framing 
the  Constitution,  the  people  of  each  generation  have  had 
their  own  life  and  their  own  problems  since  that  instru- 
ment was  drawn  up,  and  that  it  must  be  construed  to 
meet  the  present  needs  of  an  expanding  nation.  Such  has 
been  the  change  in  our  world  outlook  that  every  step  in 
the  progress  of  nationality  has  been  accompanied  by  cor- 
responding change  in  the  fundamental  law.  The  gen- 
eral necessity  for  such  an  adajjtation  and  grov/th  has 
been  fmely  stated  by  Mazzini :  "The  supreme  power  in 
a  state  must  not  drag  behind  the  stage  of  civilization 
that  infonns  it:  it  must  rather  take  the  lead  in  carrying 
it  higher,  and,  by  anticipating  the  social  thought,  bring 
the  country  up  to  its  own  level." 

American  nationality  has  been  defined  not  only  by  the 
Constitution  but  by  the  constitutional  practice  of  nearly 


THF  'NATIONAL  PARTY 


26: 


a  century  and  a  q^.  t.  And  constitutional  practice,  as 
accepted  by  all  the  ,  -  pie  of  the  nation,  in  whom  all  sov- 
ereign power  lies,  includes  not  only  judicial  but  legisla- 
tive and  executive  construction — also  construction  by 
the  sword. 

So  far,  nothing  is  clearer  in  tlie  development  of  Ameri- 
can nationality  than  this,  that  a  century  of  struggle — of 
a  common  national  life — has  clad  the  skeleton  of  1789 
with  the  flesh  and  blood  of  a  living  thing,  and  that  the 
common  life  of  those  who  were  born  to  it,  rather  than 
of  those  to  whom  it  was  born,  has  breathed  upon  it  the 
living  breath  of  organic  nationality. 

The  question  now  is,  whether  future  American  history 
shall  be  written  of  Nationalism  or  socialism.  Particular- 
ism is  played  out.  Its  last  word  is  that  the  government  of 
the  United  States  has  been  moved  from  Capitol  Hill  to 
Wall  Street.  We  have  reached  the  climax  of  a  political 
system  based  on  interests  instead  of  principles — the  apothe- 
osis of  tlie  boss  and  the  worship  of  the  machine — where 
one  man  controls  an  eleventh  of  the  national  assets  and 
the  masses  of  the  employed  middle  classes  cannot  afford 
the  decencies  of  life. 

We  are  ready  for  a  change. 

And  the  one  thing  which  can  save  the  country  from 
socialism  is  Nationalism — a  government  of  all  the  people, 
by  all  the  people,  for  all  the  people. 

A  new  era  is  upon  us  outlined  in  its  own  new  problems. 
They  are  many  and  they  are  serious.  Some  of  them  are 
ominous.  The  nationalist  is  the  only  man  who  intelli- 
gently can  cope  with  them.  In  every  great  crisis  in  our 
national  history  the  issue  htS  been  between  the  national- 


266 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


ist  and  the  particularist,  and  the  nationalist  has  always 
won  and  he  was  always  right.  He  is  right  to-day.  He 
will  win  to-day. 

Whatever  may  be  the  true  and  ultimate  political  phi- 
losophy upon  which  a  future  millennium  may  be  based, 
the  right-minded  American  statesman  will  work  on  lines 
parallel  with  the  American  idea;  and  that  idea  he  will 
interpret  roughly,  and  he  cannot  get  away  from  it, 
in  the  general  terms  of  tlie  interpretation  given  it  by 
either  George  Washington  or  Thomas  Jeflferson.  These 
two  men  head  the  two  great  American  political  parties ; 
the  two  American  systems  of  political  thought  and  every- 
thing fundamental  which  has  been  done,  or  thought,  or 
said  since  their  day  has  followed,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, the  lines  laid  out  more  than  by  anyone  else  by 
the  attitude  of  these  two  men.  Jefferson,  as  does  no 
one  else,  represents  in  philosophy,  practice,  spirit,  and 
point  of  view  the  democracy  of  individualism.  George 
Washington — the  man — his  whole  moral  and  intellec- 
tual character — is  the  incarnation  of  the  democracy  of 
Nationalism. 

The  line  of  cleavage  between  the  national  and  par- 
ticularist parties  bisects  that  separating  Republicans  and 
Democrats  at  right  angles.  There  are  nationalists  North 
and  South,  East  and  West,  Republican  and  Democratic 
and  Independent,  and  there  are  Republicans  everywhere 
who  cannot  think  nationally. 

For  example,  in  the  ranks  of  the  Republicans  are 
the  wretched  self-seekers,  who  represent  t!ie  interests 
entrenched  in  a  slougii  of  particularism  and  barricaded 
with  state  rights. 


Among  the  Democrats  are  many  men 


THE  NATIONAL  PARTY 


267 


who  are  nationalists  in  the  highest  sense,  though  they  are 
individuaHsts,  also,  in  the  highest  sense.  The  recent 
Marshall  redevivus,  with  all  the  literature  of  more  than 
a  decade,  which  calls  national  attention  again  to  the 
forming  and  framing  of  the  new  nation  by  the  construc- 
tion of  a  statesman  jurist  rather  than  the  obstruction 
of  the  legal  Pharisee,  grew  out  of  what  has  proved 
almost  an  epoch-making  address,  delivered  by  General 
John  C.  Black,  President  of  the  United  States  Civil 
Service  Commission  (then  United  States  Attorney),  be- 
fore the  Illinois  State  Bar  Association  in  the  nineties,  on 
"John  Marshall."  General  Black,  whose  funeral  sermon 
had  been  preached  at  home  twice  during  the  Civil  War, 
when  he  had  been  shot,  as  was  thought,  to  death,  is  one 
of  those  who  have  cemented  with  their  own  blood  what 
Marshall  taught,  the  sovereignty  of  the  nation,  and  not 
the  state,  and  who  has  always  been  a  patriot  and  states- 
man before  a  politician. 

"The  adoption  of  the  Constitution,"  says  General 
Black,  "was  itself  only  a  single  step  toward  the  habilita- 
tion  of  the  Republic.  That  Constitution  had  to  be  made 
effective.  It  had  to  be  so  interpreted  and  declared,  its 
principles  had  to  be  so  expounded  that  men  would  know 
that  they  were  dealing,  not  with  that  Confederation 
which  gasped  and  died  on  the  threshold  of  the  Conven- 
tion, but  with  a  Nation.  .  .  ." 

Then  follows,  in  a  number  of  carefully  selected  quo- 
tations from  Marshall — who  sat  in  eleven  hundred  cases 
through  over  a  third  of  a  centur>' — the  outlines  of  a  body 
of  doctrine  for  Nationalism  which  could  not  in  equal 
space  be  exceeded  in  American  political  literature. 


2()8 


THK  NEW  POLITICS 


Another  is  Governor  Woodrow  Wilson.  In  his  chap- 
ter on  State  Rights  (Cambridge  Modern  History,  vol.  7, 
United  States,  p.  414)  he  says.  "It  was  the  West  that  was 
making  a  nation  out  of  the  old  time  federation  of  seaboard 
states.  Webster  was  insisting  upon  the  new  uses  and 
significance  of  the  Constitution;  Hayne  was  harking 
back  to  the  old.  .  .  .  The  national  life  had.  in  these  later 
days,  grown  strong  within  it.  .  .  .  No  Constitution  can 
ever  be  treated  as  a  mere  law  or  document :  it  must 
always  be  also  a  vehicle  of  life.  Its  own  phrases  must 
become,  as  it  were,  living  tissue.  It  must  grow  and 
strengthen  and  subtly  change  with  the  growth  and 
strength  and  change  of  the  jjolitical  body  whose  life 
it  defines,  and  must  in  all  but  its  explicit  and  manda- 
tory provisions  with  regard  to  powers  ami  forms  of 
action  take  its  reading  from  the  circumstances  of  the 
time." 

This  broad,  .safe,  conservative  Nationalism  is  that 
which  the  nation  has  been  working  out  for  itself,  and 
we  find  its  exjionents  in  all  sections  and  in  all  parties. 
Since  this  is.  after  all,  the  fundamental  (|uesiion  and  point 
of  view,  here  ought  the  old  parties  to  be  reorganized. 
The  national  jiarty  is  unorganized  and  unnamed.  Per- 
haps it  is  time  for  it  tt)  be  named  and  organized. 

There  is  a  fundamental  line  of  cleavage  here  histori- 
cally and  philosophically. 

In  oui'  ]!  ilicies  tliere  may  l>c  a  hundred.  In  our  poli- 
tics .here  niav  be  only  this  one.  It  is  that  wliicii  sepa- 
rates by  unbridgeable  abysses  the  ground  ideas  of  the 
two  systems  of  thought — that  of  atomism  and  that  of 
ofi/anic   unitv. 


THIi  NATIONAL  PARTY 


269 


The  Declaration  of  Independence  leaves  out  the  ele- 
nieut  of  reciprocity,  outlines  the  philosophy  of  individual- 
ism, and  is  the  fouinlation  stone  of  the  democracy  of 
individualism. 

The  Constitution,  on  the  other  hand,  offers  the  founda- 
tion for  a  creed  of  the  democracy  of  altruism.  Enacted, 
as  it  were,  for  the  e.xpress  purpose  of  declaring  ourselves 
one  instead  of  thirteen  nations,  it  uttered  a  new  and  sig- 
nificant note  in  the  prevailing  discords  of  anarchy  when 
it  declared  its  purposive  mission  "to  promote  the  general 
welfare."  If  Gladstone's  estimate  is  correct  that  thi.s 
was  the  nohlest  document  ever  struck  ofif  at  one  time 
from  the  mind  of  man,  it  is  also  true  that  the  Preamble 
contains  one  of  tiie  most  benign  and  far-reaching  ethical 
motives  ever  ascribed  to  a  jwlitical  document.  Every 
one  knows  tlie  onslaughts  of  the  political  ancestors  of 
the  American  democracy  on  this  precious  instrument ; 
how  JelYtTson  said,  after  opposing  it,  it  should  be  made 
over  every  iiine'.ceii  years,  and  how  Alexander  Hamilton, 
in  one  of  the  ni')'!  dramatic  and  brilliant  struggles  in  the 
political  annals  of  mankind,  saved  the  Constitution  at 
Pouglikeei)sic,  l)!asted  the  last  hope  of  individualism  and 
the  "particularists."  and  made  anarchy  forever  impos- 
sible so  long  as  t'.ie  Cor,  tituti'Mi  lasts:  and  saved  tliis 
nation  to  tlie  fuiure  in  securing  that  instrument  which 
was  not  only  to  be  t!ie  perpetual  guarantee  of  our  liber- 
ties, but  tlie  assertion  of  our  duties. 

Then  and  there  was  the  fundamental  issue  defined 
between  t!ie  two  great  i)Mlitical  parties  of  the  United 
States,  and  i'umi  and  there  were  tlie  bnjad  lines  of  future 
conllic*  laid  out 


270 


THE  XICVV  POLITICS 


The  struggle  of  the  twentietli  century  will  be  between 
the  parties  of  State  Rights  and  of  One  Xation — of  Indi- 
vidualism and  Nationalism;  between  the  party  of  self- 
interest  and  the  party  of  the  general  welfare ;  between  the 
philosophy  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  the 
philosophy  of  tliat  Declaration  of  Interdependence — the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States. 


CHAPTER  VII 


TO    SUM    IT    UP 

Behind  every  tlieory  of  government  is  a  theorj-  of  life. 
The  theories  of  hfe  which  stand  opposed  to  each  other 
at  the  beginning  of  this  ominous  century  are  tlie  prin- 
ciple of  individualism  and  the  principle  of  association. 

Individualism  oflfers  a  theory  of  society,  but  it  is  a 
wolfish  one. 

Socialism  offers  a  theory  of  society,  but  it  is  an  im- 
practical one. 

Opportunism  has  no  theory  of  society,  no  theory  of 
life.  It  is  sometimes  good — it  is  sometimes  bad.  It  is 
always  uncertain. 

What  we  want  is  an  idea.  It  must  be  fundamental, 
social,  historical,  ethical.  Such  an  idea  must  be  the  foun- 
dation of  the  true  democracy,  and  it  will  be  founded  on 
the  theory  of  the  brotherhood,  not  the  step-brotherhood, 
of  mankind.  It  must  be  an  expression  of  the  corporate 
reason  and  ethic ;  not  the  chaos  of  competing  and  unre- 
lated units.  It  must  be  an  integral  part  of  a  whole  theory 
of  sound  life  and  must  not  be  "split  in  two  with  a 
hatchet."  The  atomist  view  of  life,  which  conceives 
economics,  politics,  ethics,  religion  in  isolated  and  unre- 
lated positions,  bears  about  the  same  relation  to  modern 
intelligence  as  the  older  fonns  of  phrenology  bear  to 
modern  psycholog\%  which  represents  the  human  mind 
as  a  unit  and  not  so  many  faculties  marked  by  cranial 
protuberances  like  so  many  hills  of  potatoes. 

271 


272 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


While  we  look  forward  ultimately  to  something  wider 
than  Nationalism,  racial  federation  can  only  come 
through  and  be  based  on  sound  ethical  Nationalism  as 
the  latter  is  based  on  sound  and  moral  personal  character. 
Anything  like  cosmopolitanism  is  too  remote  for  dis- 
cussion here.  But  what  we  ought  to  have  and  what  we 
might  have  is  an  ethical  democracy  in  which  the  tenderer 
sentiments  of  the  human  heart  may  not  wither  and  die, 
where  a  man  may  be  honest  and  fair  and  still  do  business, 
and  where  men  will  not  mangle  and  crush  their  brethren 
to  acquire  their  property  without  fair  return,  and  where 
the  acquisitive  instinct  lias  not  gone  stark  mad.  To  the 
true  statesman  the  very  idea  of  tlie  separation  of  poli- 
tics and  etliics  mu.st  be  an  insanity.  The  fact  that  the 
brute  instinct  of  self-interest  is  still  the  mainspring  of 
human  society  shall  occur  to  him  as  a  colossal  sin  against 
God  and  man.  ICvermore.  if  we  are  human  beings,  we 
must  return  to  tlie  ethical  problem,  for  iiuman  values  are 
ethical  and  one  human  being  will  not  dare  face  another 
human  being  in  the  universe  without  regard  to  the  ethical 
motive.    The  universe  is  constituted  this  way. 

Tlie  fate  of  tlie  Western  Hemisphere — indeed  of  the 
world-e.xperiment  of  democracy — hangs  here.  Tlie  faults 
of  such  democracy  as  we  have  known  are  the  faults 
of  the  philosopliy  of  life  behind  it — viz..  individualism. 
The  sinister  elements  dominating  our  institutions,  and 
which  give  a  foreboding  asi)ect  to  our  .sky.  are  the  hell 
brood  of  individualism,  reduced  in  every  cas  ■  to  the 
motives  of  piracy  prevailing  everywhere  in  our  business 
world.  Anarchy  still  prevails  in  our  midst  outside  the 
reach  of  law;  because  we  have  separated  ethics   from 


TO  SUM  IT  UP 


273 


politics  and  economics — because  we  have  separated 
morals  from  business  and  religion  from  life. 

There  is  no  appeal  from  the  verdict  of  history. 

In  so  far  as  motives  of  sociality  have  <lisplaced  those 
of  selfish  instinct  we  have  seen  the  result  in  civilized 
society.  If  we  are  able  to  learn  anytiiing  from  tlie  his- 
tory of  our  nation,  it  is  that  ours,  of  all  human  experi- 
ments, has  shown  by  this  time  that  human  progress  lies 
toward  rational  association  and  not  toward  that  untrani- 
nieled  strife  called  free  competition;  away  from  anarcliy 
and  in  the  direction  of  nationally  conceived  and  nationally 
coordinated  law  and  order.  The  chance  phrase  of  Plau- 
tus,  "homo  hoiitini  lupus."  describes  such  pure  individual- 
ism as  still  exists  in  the  world,  auvl  it  is  not  time  wasted 
for  us  to  stop  money-getting  now  and  then  long  etiough 
to  ask  ourselves  whether  it  is  more  or  less  of  it  we 
want. 

So  far  we  have  survived  and  outgrown  atomism,  but 
we  have  not  stated  our  national  thesis  nor  fomiulated 
our  national  tlieories.  We  are,  however,  coming  to  tlie 
point  that  Jeffersonian  atomism  offers  no  rational  basis  for 
political  association — for  a  theory  of  legislation,  a  theory 
of  government,  a  theory  of  tlie  state,  or  a  theory  of  life. 

In  proportion  as  we  are  abandoning  individualism,  a 
national  idea  is  dawning  upon  us.  Some  one  will  confer 
upon  the  American  people  a  lasting  benefit  when  he  dis- 
closes, at  this  line  of  cleavage,  the  clue  of  American 
l)oIitical  history  and  at  the  same  time  the  key  of  Ameri- 
can political  destiny. 

Wc  are  even  beginning  to  get  used  to  the  idea  of 
national  self-government.     This  generation  was  born  to 


274 


THF-   NKVV  POLITICS 


it.  Nationality  is  its  l)irthright.  It  is  becoming  as  easy 
for  some  of  ns  to  imagine  a  nation  governing  itself  as  a 
state  gDverning  itself,  or  a  municipality  governing  itself. 
The  idea  is  easy  because  \vc  were  born  seeing  the  thing 
(lone.  Once  it  was  not  so.  .Vronnd  this  idea  have  Ijeen 
fought  (>ur  fiercest  jxilitical  struggles  and  one  of  the 
bloodiest  wars  of  the  world.  Out  of  these  struggles  has 
slowly  grown  the  conviction  that  the  very  life  of  any 
true  democracy,  and  its  fitness  to  survive,  is  bound  up 
in  the  projMisition  tiiat  the  whole  people  is  fit  to  govern, 
can  govern,  and  does  govern  itself.  Once  government  was 
the  bile  noire  of  the  .Xnierican  populace.  We  are  begin- 
ning to  find  our  national  peril  in  lawlessness.  Once  the 
jieople  shouted  for  individual  liberty.  But  having  nar- 
rowly escaped  tlie  danger  of  becoming  enslaveti  through 
anarchy  we  are  seeking  more  and  more  constitutional 
liberty. 

We  have  found  out  that  certain  things  concern  the 
whole  American  peojjle;  indeed,  that  evcrytliing  .Ameri- 
can concerns  the  wliole  .American  people.  For  these 
American  concerns  we  are  wanting  strong  government — 
national  government.  We  want  strong  government  be- 
cause that  is  the  opposite  of  weak  government.  -\nd 
weak  goxernment  means  a  weak  nation.  And  a  weak 
nation  means  a  weak  people.  .Xnd  a  weak  people  means 
weak  i)eopIe.  We  contend  for  strength,  adefpiacy, 
national  sovereignty  over  national  relations  and  interests. 
We  demand  a  government  f)f  all  the  people,  by  all  the 
people,  and  for  all  the  people.  This  we  oppose  to  atom- 
ism, anarchy,  confusion,  and  sectional  strife. 

"The  Divine  Right  of  Kings,"  said  Disraeli,  "may  have 


TO  SUM  IT  UP 


375 


Wn  a  pica  for  feeble  tyrants,  but  the  divine  right  of 
government  is  tlie  keystone  ui  human  progress." 

I  iiave  contrasted,  in  l)arest  suggestion,  the  basic  ideas 
of  the  democracy  of  Individualism  and  of  the  democracy 
of  Nationalism. 

I  have  indicated  by  a  few  concrete  instances  of  ethical 
legislation  wherein  the  American  state,   for  a  hundred 
and  twenty  years,  has  been  encroaching  \x\K>n  the  anarchy 
of  individualism,  and  too  slowly  enlarging  the  area  of 
the  common  gocMJ.  by  establishing  the  sphere  of  rational 
ix)litics  over  brute  instinct  still  predominant  in  our  preda- 
tory regime.     Otiier  forces  have  made  for  anarchy  per- 
haps as  fast  as  we  have  gaineil  headway,  the  unassimi- 
lated   foreign  element,  and   particularly  the  increasing 
power  of  lawless  financialism,  the  enervations  and  degen- 
eracies of  our  young  men  and  women,  who  have  noth- 
ing to  do  but  gratify  their  appetites  and  passions  and 
study  new  means  of  wasting  treasure  created  by  exploited 
and  unrequited  toil.     I  have  tried  to  .show  that  under- 
lying such  policies  as  have  been  a  credit  to  the  Constitu- 
tional party,  to  tiie  nation,  and  to  modern  civilization, 
there  are  certain  principles  wc  have  been  working  out. 
mostly  in  the  dark,  without  intelligent  plan  or  foresight 
largely— principles  unrecognized,  unstated,  and  unnamed, 
but  which  should  be  clearly  stated,  candidly  discussed, 
and  in  good  faith  accepted  or  rejected  as  they  have  been 
seen  to  be  valuable  in  practice.     Fugitive  acts,  sporadic 
and  opportunist  legislation  are  too  apt  to  result  from 
demagogic  appeal  to  tlie  citizen  who  will  sell  his  vote 
for  his  financial  advantage,  which  almo.st  all  Americans 


MICROCOPY    RKOIOTION    TEST   CHART 

ANSI  cr.J  ISO  TEST   CHART  No    2 


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^     ^FPlIEQ  IfVMGE     Inc 


2;6  THE  NEW  POLITICS 

holding  the  business  theory  of  the  state  affirm  of  their 
molivcs,  and  affirm  without  private  shame  or  pubHc  re- 
buke.    For  the  most  part  we  are  Repubhcans  or  Demo- 
crats because  of  our  conception  of  our  business  interests; 
or  one  step  furtlier.  for  the  hope  of  office;  or  further 
still,  in  the  direction  of  pure  Hedonism  in  politics,  we 
sell  our  votes  for  money.     If  there  is  one  thing  worse, 
however,  than  selling  ourselves,  it  is  buying  others ;  for 
the  sake  of  our  lawless  aggrandizement,  to  acquire  for 
a   consideration,    votes,    legislatures,    common   councils, 
judges,  and  congressmen.    How  will  the  young  American 
coming  of  age  approach  the  franchise?     Will  he  come 
with  the  sodden  question  in  his  heart,  "Will  my  vote 
help  my  business?"     "Shall  I  get  office?"     "How  much 
can  I  get  for  my  vote?"    I  can  imagine  another  kind  of 
politician  who  will  say,  "I  believe  in  reason  instead  of 
brute  instinct ;  in  law  and  order,  not  anarchy.    I  believe 
the  American  nation  to  be  something   far  greater  and 
more  worthy  than  a  'business  proposition.'     I  acknowl- 
edge an  obligation  for  every  privilege,  a  duty  for  every 
riglit.  and  bind  myself  to  pay  the  future  what  I  owe  the 
past.     I  shall  find  a  place  for  humane  sentiment  in  busi- 
ness and  for  conscience  in  politics,  on  the  theory  that  the 
categorical    imperative    rules    the   human    constellations 
as  completely  as  gravitation  rules  the  stars." 

Here,  again,  emerges  the  fundamental  question  of  the 
Politics  of  tlie  Republic.  Shall  we  govern  more,  or  shall 
we  govern  less?  The  individualists  do  not  seem  to  have 
grasped  the  difference  between  these  questions;  whether 
we  shall  be  governed  more  or  govern  ourselves  more. 


TO  SUM  IT  UP 


277 


Many  ;  -  .  n  also  to  think  there  is  some  difference  in  prin- 
ciple between  local  and  national  self-government.  But 
this  is  comparatively  harmless  in  comparison  with  those 
phases  of  the  eighteenth  century  creed  construing  all 
government  as  an  evil,  and  very  little  of  it  a  necessary 
evil.  The  "Reds"  of  Paterson,  the  Black  Hand  of  the  East 
Side,  and  other  gangs  and  organizations  to  whom  we 
have  extended  our  unintelligent  hospitality  all  over  this 
country,  the  Night  Riders  of  the  South,  the  bomb  throw- 
ers of  the  West,  the  hoboes,  and  cutthroats,  and  rebaters, 
and  stock  gamblers;  in  short,  all  anarchists,  above  or 
below  or  outside  the  law ;  all  the  law-breaking,  law-defying 
brood  of  individualism  hold  fast  to  its  amiable  theories — 
that  we  must  govern  less  and  not  more;  that  we  must 
limit  the  sphere  of  law  and  order  and  not  enlarge  it,  until 
the  very  quaking  foundations  of  the  Republic  sound 
alarms  for  the  increasing  lawlessness  of  the  nation.  We 
have  lost  our  respect  for  law  and  order  as  such,  as  a 
nation,  and  we  are  drifting  back  tov.ard  the  instincts  and 
principles  of  Confederation  and  state  rights.  We  are 
losing  the  constitutional  liberties  we  have  won  in  the 
license  we  are  willing  to  accord  the  lawless.  The 
national  problem  is — more  national  self-government  or 
less  national  self-government! 

Which  do  we  want  more  of? 

This  raises  a  concrete  question.  Shall  we  contract  or 
enlarge  the  sphere  of  the  state?  Shall  we  go  backward 
or  forward?  Shall  we  govern  less  or  govern  more? 
Shall  we  move  in  the  direction  of  egoism  or  altruism? 
Satisfy  our  individual  rights  or  discharge  our  duties  to 
the  human  race?    Shall  we  repeal  such  ethical  legislation 


278 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


as  we  have  won,  or  shall  we  enact  more  similar  legisla- 
tion for  the  "general  welfare"?  Any  consistent  egoistic 
individualism  must  say  that  to  fulfill  our  destiny  we  must 
return  lo  the  purer  "business  theory  of  the  state" — a 
policeman  theory  of  the  state — the  state  of  primeval 
anarchy  modified  by  a  grudged  protection  of  life  and 
property — a  state  without  reason  or  ethic — consequently 
without  soul — and  an  environment  where  the  human 
spirit  will  gorge  on  husks  for  swine. 

T!iis  is  a  vital  question.  The  existence  of  this  govern- 
ment and  the  permanence  of  our  institutions  depend  on 
how  our  people  answer  this  question. 

Sliall  we  reduce  ourselves  to  further  individualism? 
Shall  we  provide  no  defense  against  external  aggression, 
nor  conduct  foreign  treaties,  nor  preserve  internal  peace 
and  order?  Shall  we  sublet  the  military  and  naval 
departments  to  the  contractors  who  may  also  build  the 
Panama  Canal?  Shall  we  take  away  the  corner  stone 
of  family  ties,  duties,  affections  by  failing  to  regulate 
the  marriage  contract?  Shall  we  neglect  our  highways 
and  extend  no  control  over  those  who  use  them — or  our 
bridges,  ports  or  harbors,  coast  lights  and  surveys?  Shall 
we  drop  the  postal  system  and  provide  no  uniform  sys- 
tem of  weights  and  measures — abolisli  patent  and  copy- 
right laws?  Shall  we  abolish  quarantine,  prohibit  no 
nuisances,  neglect  public  cleanliness,  supervise  no  foods 
and  medicines,  abolish  no  adulterations,  allow  the  impor- 
tation of  contagious  diseases,  provide  no  maintenance  for 
the  poor,  the  idiotic,  the  insane,  the  helpless?  Shall  our 
laws  no  longer  shield  infants  by  avoiding  their  contracts 
or  protect  their  personc  or  property — or  married  women, 


TO  SUM  IT  UP 


^79 


or  persons  of  unsound  mind?'  Shall  we  allow  no  regu- 
lation of  the  employment  of  women  or  children?  Shall 
we  return  to  laisscc  fairc,  hisses  aller,  laisscs  passer — 
let-her-go  and  God  help  us — in  other  words,  sliall  we 
govern  I'ss  or  govern  more?     That  is  the  question. 

I  venture  to  say  tiiat  no  political  party  will  ever  see 
the  light  of  day  again  in  thii.  country  which  consistently 
supports  individualism,  its  children,  or  its  grandchildren. 
The  salvation  of  our  nation  is  bound  up  in  the  Con- 
stitutional party's  being  true  to  its  philosophical  founda- 
tions and  its  historic  achievements,  and  in  the  completion 
of  the  program  of  Nationalism,  for  the  hills  around  us 
are  an  encampment  of  the  hosts  of  anarchy  and  the 
horsemen  thereof.  The  American  people  must  choose 
between  government  ownership,  the  confusions  of  indi- 
vidualism, and  government  control — in  other  words, 
between  socialism,  anarchy,  and  Nationalism. 

The  old  enemy  is  still  in  the  saddle — individualism — 
nothing  more,  nothing  less. 

But  individualism  takes  no  account  and  entertains  no 
estimate  of  humanity.  The  democracy  of  individualism 
conceives  a  multitude  of  human  units,  each  with  a  multi- 
tude of  militant  rights,  with  no  common  aim.  no  soli- 
darity, devoid  of  the  idea  of  fraternity — unrelated,  com- 
peting political  and  economic  units. 

Such  a  democracy  had  been  the  lot  which  had  fallen  to 
the  United  States  except  for  the  gradual  introduction  of 
the  methods  and  spirit  of  Nationalism. 

Let  it  be  conceded  that  we  can  work  better  together 
for  tlie  same  thing  than  against  each  other  for  the  same 

'  Byles. 


280 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


thing.  In  the  absence  of  95,000,000  separate  millen- 
niums in  95,000.000  individual  hearts,  XationaUsm 
assumes  political  form  and  function  and  on  its  negative 
side  sets  up  the  principle  of  Government  Control,  while 
in  its  positive  aspects  it  appears  in  the  social,  rational, 
ethical  theory  of  the  state,  including  a  Christian  theory 
of  legislation. 

The  late  Professor  Goldwin  Smith  once  said  that  we 
ought  never  to  glorify  revolutions,  that  "statesmanship 
is  the  art  of  preventing  them."  This  is  the  negative  side 
of  our  problem. 

When  Sir  William  Harcourt,  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, said,  "We  are  all  socialists  now,"  he  meant  that 
all  intelligent  countries  are  erecting  ethical  and  altruistic 
barriers  to  human  greed ;  have  differentiated  between  the 
creation  and  acquisition  of  wealth ;  have  recognized  that 
human  evolution  contains  a  principle  higher  than  the 
reckless  brute  supremacy  of  the  cunning  and  the  strong; 
and  that  the  unmistakable  world  movement  is  away  from 
irresponsible   conflict    and   toward  rational  association. 

If  there  is  a  question  as  to  whether  free  institutions 
shall  sur\-ive  in  this  country,  it  has  not  arisen  from  the 
restraints  legislation  has  laid  upon  the  rebellious  and 
greedy  instincts  of  the  "lord  of  himself  in  undisturbed 
delight,"  but  in  the  sodden  philosophy  of  the  Revolution, 
whose  tragedy  has  resulted  at  last  in  the  American  multi- 
billionaire.  I  have  said  we  want  a  new  Declaration  of 
Independence  of  man  as  well  as  men ;  of  duties  as  well  as 
rights;  and  it  must  declare  the  right  of  Xationalism  to 
invade  and  restore  and  protect  every  sanctuary  individ- 
ualism has  violated. 


j 

TO  SUM  IT  UP                        281 

i  ^ 

sm 

Statesmanship   just    now    is   the  art    of   preventing 
anarchy  or  socialism.     Simitia  similibus  curantur.    The 

ve 

extension  of  ethical  legislation  is  the  only  power  that 

ile 

can  put  the  anarchists  out  of  business;  but  if  the  country 

al, 
.ry 

we 

is  to  be  saved  from  the  disease  of  radical  and  revolu- 
tionary socialism  it  must  be  vaccinated.     The  hope  of 
the  survival  of  democratic  institutions  and  civil  liberty 
in  the  country  is  in  the  extension  of  the  principle  of 

lip 

association — of  Nationalism — in  the  enactment  of  such 

de 

ethical  legislation  as  shall  smash  the  "divine  rights"  of 
"barons"  and  all  "corners"  on  necessities  and  make  it 

m- 
lat 

little  worth  the  while  of  any  one  man  to  acquire  ten 
billion  dollars  or  perhaps  later  own  all  the  earth  and  most 

tic 

of  heaven. 

he 
lat 

One  of  the  most  splendid  ethical  generalizations  of  the 
human  mind  is  that  of  the  Scotsman  whose  forefathers 

he 

went  from  Scotland  to  Konigsberg  ostensibly  for  a  job, 

but  really,  doubtless,  that  their  son  might  become  the 
creator   of  modern  philosophy   and   German   Idealism. 

)n. 

Emmanuel   Kant    said,   "That  conduct    is   right   which 

ns 

would  work  for  good  if  it  hecame  universal."     Politi- 

he 
nd 

cally,  it  is  the  task  of  Nationalism  to  uphold  this  principle. 
Can  we  imagine  the  hog  philosophy  of  modern  com- 

ed 

)n, 

mercialism  alongside  such  a  generalization?     Can   we 
imagine  Napoleon,  that  insatiable  maelstrom  of  Indi- 

ti- 

vidualism,  operating  on  the  ethical  plane  laid  down  by 

of 

Kant — or  the  child-murderers  of  Birmingham  and  Man- 

as 

chester;  or  modern  American  billionaireism? 

to 

Individualism  will  creep  barefoot  in  the  snow  or  on 

d- 

its  knees,  like  the  pious  kings  of  old,  to  hear  the  gospel 

i 

i 

of  Manchester  preached  at  the  altar  of  Juggernaut,  for 

% 


282 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


it  is  the  last  refuge  of  despairing  plutocracy.  WI10 
wants  a  status  quo-''  He  whom  Emerson  described  as 
having  no  argument  but  possession.  Who  calls  loudest 
for  free  competition?  He  who  can  circumvent  or  exceed 
free  competition,  the  rebater  and  throat-cutter.  Who 
wants  to  keep  productive  industry  in  a  state  of  war? 
The  man  with  the  strongest  arm  and  tlie  heaviest  artil- 
lery. Who  wants  to  bolster  the  civilization  which  asks 
no  questions  but  "who  arrives  first  at  the  goal"?  He 
who  has  the  largest  liandicap  and  the  longest  legs.  There 
is  not  a  man  in  either  party  who  ever  offered  a  bribe  or 
took  one,  who  ever  bought  or  sold  his  vote,  who  ever 
won  an  election  by  intimidation,  who  is  not  a  consistent 
individualist  and  who  is  not  a  logical  believer  in  "the 
business  theory  of  the  state."  No  one  but  a  consistent 
individualist  ever  deserted  his  post  on  the  picket  line  or 
turned  his  back  in  battle;  ever  betrayed  his  country  for 
gold  or  his  Master  for  silver. 

Finally,  to  state  this  question  answers  it. 

If  it  is  a  question  of  motive  without  consideration  of 
whicli  the  etliical  element  is  inconceivable,  is  human  wel- 
fare best  served  by  the  egoistic  or  aUruistic  motive? 

If  it  is  a  question  of  point  of  view,  shall  that  be  instinct 
or  reason  ? 

If  the  antithesis  is  between  two  tendencies,  does  the 
"harmonious  development  of  the  human  race"  lie  in  the 
direction  of  license  or  liberty,  chaos  or  order,  anarchy  or 
law?  in  forty-eight  separate  sovereignties  or  in  one 
strong  national  self-government? 


EPILOGUE 

Twenty  years  ago  tlie  late  Professor  Sumner  was 
writing  in  the  North  American  Review  on  "The  Absurd 
Attempt  to  Make  the  World  Over  "  Professor  Sumner 
enjoyed  a  place  with  the  very  large  majority  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race  where  he  could  congratulate  his  fellow 
beings  if  not  that  the  atoms  of  the  universe  were  fortu- 
nate in  that  they  happened  to  stumble  across  those  two 
great  accidents — the  world  and  man;  at  least,  having 
stumbled  upon  them,  the  path  of  progress  was  up  that 
blind  alley  in  which  they  could  stumble  some  more.  To 
set  up  a  theory  of  navigation  upon  the  abolition  of 
rudders  and  the  abrogation  of  astronomy  was  what 
those  sons  of  Chaos,  not  Cosmos  (as  Carlyle  might  have 
called  them)>  would  set  out  to  do  in  carrying  our  eight- 
eenth century  a  priori  theories  to  logical  conclusions.  It 
is  a  commentary  upon  our  intelligence — and  it  is  tragic 
enough  too — that  we  have  so  persistently  refused  to 
apply  human  intelligence  to  our  own  political  affairs; 
that  we  have  trusted  to  a  policy  of  drift  and  have  believed 
in  the  principle  that  we  can  make  more  progress  blind- 
fold than  with  our  eyes  open. 

Now,  this  is  a  curious,  I  may  say  an  extraordinary, 
development  of  irrationalism  developed  almost  to  a  race 
characteristic. 

That  we  have  been  satisfied,  for  example,  9999-100 
per  cent  of  the  human  race,  to  apply  more  science  to  the 
production  of  a  litter  of  pigs  than  to  the  matter  of  our 
own  posterity;  that  we  still  allow  the  degenerate,  the 

283 


284 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


habitually  criminal,  the  idiotic,  insane,  and  incurable 
to  run  at  large  and  propagate  their  kind;  that  we,  in 
America,  allow  Wall  Street  to  control  and  manipulate 
our  finance  to  the  extent  that  at  any  moment  we  may 
be  plunged  irresponsibly  and  without  recourse  into  a 
state  of  financial  panic — to  be  forever  with  our  vast 
business  interests  at  the  mercy  of  a  few  financial  pirates; 
to  have  no  business  stability  and  no  possibility  of  busi- 
ness stability ;  these  and  a  thousand  and  one  Anglo-Saxon 
peculiarities  are  emphasizing  our  characteristically  demo- 
cratic respect  for  established  facts,  first  as  an  absurdity 
and  then  as  a  crime.  There  are  all  around  us  pathetic 
illustrations  of  the  invincible  perversity  of  our  unin- 
telligence. 

So  far  as  natural  wealth  is  concerned — I  mean  the 
kind  it  has  taken  geologic  ages  for  the  good  God  to 
prepare — no  people  ever  entered  into  such  an  inheritance 
as  ours.  And  no  people  has  ever  behaved  so  badly 
with  it. 

What  have  we  done  with  it  ?  We  have  been  criminal 
wastrels.  We  have  been  complacent  and  unjust  stewards. 
We  have  not  only  refused  to  take  what  belongs  to  us; 
we  refused  to  keep  what  we  had,  and  we  have  wasted 
what  we  had  left.  Result :  The  American  financiers  are 
rich  and  the  American  people  are  poor. 

We  have  been  boasting  that  we  are  the  richest  nation 
on  earth.  What  it  means  is  that  we  have  the  richest 
multibillionaires  "n  earth.  We  have  been  boasting  oi 
our  inexhaustible  resources,  until  there  is  only  one  inex- 
haustible resource  left — the  complacency  of  the  Ameri- 
can people. 


EPILOGUE 


285 


This  is  what  lies  at  the  botoni  of  our  laisscs  faire, 
laissez  passer  poUtics — this  tragic  optimism — this  unin- 
telUgent  complacency  of  ours.  It  is  based  on  a  theory-  of 
life  which  has  given  us  our  politics  and  which  is  dis- 
tinctly eighteenth  century  in  origin,  scope,  and  spirit. 
It  sprang  from  the  movement  of  an  age  which  gave  us 
our  personal  lil)erty  and  failed  to  teach  us  what  to  do 
with  it.  That  is  wiiy  we  do  not  know  what  to  do  with 
our  national  patrimony. 

The  good  Lord  has  made  us  joint  trustees  of  the  rich- 
est continent  on  earth  and  in  our  fat-witted  optimism 
we  have  turned  it  over  to  the  multibillionaire.  We  have 
given  him  the  elemental  resources  of  our  own  national 
prosperity,  and  now  we  must  pay  and  we  have  little  to  pay 
with.  We  have  not  only  been  criminal,  we  have  been 
unintelligent.  While  we  have  been  stripping  our  children 
to  clothe  the  billionaire  idol,  we  have  been  chanting  our 
optimistic  lies  at  his  feet,  until  our  optimism  is  the  most 
pessimistic  thing  I  know. 

It  would  seem  that  a  race  of  beings  as  old  as  ours, 
and  as  ripe  in  experience,  before  this,  might  have  found 
out  that  the  intelligent  framing  of  our  political  institu- 
tions and  the  rational  administration  of  our  affairs  are 
better  than  that  fantastic  and  whimsical  method  called 
hisses  faire. 

No  one  who  has  ever  given  serious  thought  to  human 
affairs  can  have  failed  in  some  measure  to  blanch  before 
the  awful  preventable  waste  of  human  resources  and  of 
human  aspiration  and  life.  Nothing  in  all  the  wearying 
annals  of  the  race  is  sadder  than  this  world-waste — this 
preventable  waste — this   waste  of   resource — waste   0? 


38b 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


life.  The  late  Professor  Ritchie  once  -^aid  :  "The  history 
of  progress  is  the  record  of  the  j,'ra<hial  diiniinition  of 
waste."  The  history  of  progress  lias  been  all  of  this. 
But  it  has  been  tnorc  It  has  been  the  intelligent  use, 
and  not  abuse,  of  resource  and  life.  It  has  been  the  con- 
servation uf  resource  and  life. 

This  idea  has  found  the  beginning  of  a  realization  in 
one  of  tiie  best  consummations  of  the  New  Politics:  in 
that  most  u.seful  and  most  significant  movement  of  mod- 
ern times  known  sometimes  as  the  Conservation  move- 
ment. It  is  the  best  illustration  in  the  world  of  scientific 
government,  "efifici?ncy  in  management,"  constructive 
statecraft:  this  phase  of  the  Xew  Politics  known  as  Con- 
servation. 

There  are  two  or  three  or  four  men  whose  names 
have  become  closely  connected  with  the  movement  (and 
to  them  such  honor  is  due  as  is  becoming  to  fairness  and 
accuracy),  who  have  very  much  more  credit  than  they 
deserve.  I  am  inclined  to  the  view  of  Achilles,  that 
"there  were  kings  before  Agamemnon." 

It  is  time  for  some  one  to  recognize  the  thousands  of 
trained  scientists,  especially  in  the  government  service 
at  VVasliington,  each  man  pursuing  some  undiscovered 
truth  along  the  untraveled  pathway  of  superhuman  labor, 
for  the  eternal  good  of  mankind.  For  one  man  to  P  Dur- 
ish  these  trophies  and  pose  as  the  father  of  conserva- 
tion is  quite  ridiculous.  It  is  sufficient  honor  to  have 
been  the  megaphone  of  a  great  movement.  The  other 
day  Secretary  Wilson  was  introducing  me  to  some  of 
the  scientists  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture.  When 
I  venture^  to  speak  appreciatively  of  his  work  he  waved 


EPILOGUE 


a87 


his  h.in(l  toward  thcni  and  said  :  "These  are  the  men  who 
must  have  the  honor  for  the  work  of  this  Department. 
I  am  here  to  take  the  responsibihty  for  its  mistakes." 
It  was  a  handsome  tribute  by  one  who  could  afford  to 
make  it. 

Nearly  a  half  century  ago,  Major  J.  W.  Powell,  taking 
his  life  in  his  hand  (he  had  only  one  hand),  made  the 
famous  passage  of  the  Colorado  River  with  his  daunt- 
less companions.  He  spent  years  on  the  great  American 
desert,  and  his  labors,  brought  out  first  in  his  book  on 
The  Arid  Lands,  became  the  original  impulse  of  the 
great  American  Conservation  movement.  Major  Powell 
was  the  father  of  Conservation  on  this  continent. 

Conservation  is  the  concerted  movement  of  several 
thousand  scientists  in  the  government  service  in  Wash- 
ington whose  work  was  set  for  them  nearly  a  half 
century  ago — more  than  by  any  other  one  man,  by  Major 
J.  W.  Powell.  This  work  has  been  cumulative.  The 
present  Conservation  propaganda  would  have  been  im- 
possible without  the  immense  quantity  of  scientific  data 
they  have  gathered  by  means  of  a  vast  amount  of  toil 
of  which  the  American  people  little  dream.  With  this 
great  mass  of  material  gradually  closing  into  something 
like  a  unified  and  synthetic  shape,  it  would  be  a  poor 
and  unintelligent  legislator  or  administrator  who  would 
not  make  use  of  it — not  but  that  we  have  had  poor  and 
unintelligent  legislators  and  administrators. 

Thus  our  s'"ientists  are  giving  the  world  a  new  lesson 
in  government.  More  than  this,  they  are  giving  us  a 
new  lesson  in  Politics.  I  know  of  nothing  like  it  in  the 
history  of  mankind — like  this  unexpected  substitute  for 


288 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


the  boss  and  the  machine — like  this  body  of  doctrine 
which  shall  take  the  place  of  Jacobin  egotisms,  shrieked 
on  our  Fourth  of  July  plat f onus  and  by  our  quadrennial 
spellbinders  mouthing  the  tariff. 

Here  is  the  work — here  are  the  investigations — here 
are  the  scientific  and  irrefragable  conclusions  of  some 
thousands  of  the  most  useful  men  m  the  world  to-day — 
making  a  contribution  to  human  civilization  and  to 
human  progress  which  has  never  had  its  equal.  They 
have  essayed  the  colossal  task  of  the  habilitation  of  a 
continent.  Their  "absurd  attempt"  to  make  this  half  of 
the  world  over,  which  is  still  unmade,  and  which  we  in 
our  folly  have  been  making  worse,  is  no  less  than  the 
beginning  of  the  savirg  of  the  continental  domain,  which 
is  our  national  home,  on  terms  that  will  keep  it  for  pos- 
terity for  thousands  of  years  to  come. 

Without  this  work,  one  hundred  years  would  have 
seen  tliis  continent  a  wilderness,  in  respect  to  several  of 
the  elemental  resources  upon  which  national  prosperity 
depends. 

Conservation  is  Scientific  Government.  It  is  the  basis 
of  a  new  Political  Economy.  It  is  the  foundation  of 
a  New  Politics.  It  is  the  logical  development  of  the 
old  Nationalism.  It  has  already  taught  us  some  ver>' 
sound  lessons  as  to  whether  the  political  doctrine  of 
haphazard  is  better  than  that  of  scientific  prevision 
and  precision ;  as  to  whether  the  "absurd  attempt  to  make 
the  world  over"  is  as  absurd  as  its  abandonment  to 
anarchy  and  rapine.  The  fact  is.  we  have  been  making 
the  world  over.  What  has  been  done  by  the  atomist  in 
the  scramble  of  helter-skelter,  the  blind,  unreasoning,  and, 


EPILOGUE 


289 


I  may  say,  irrational  strife,  unguided  and  unchecked  by 
rational  constitutions  and  institutions,  is  not  generally 
very  much  to  the  credit  of  the  human  race.     But  there 
have  been  those  who  have  dreamed  of  making  the  world 
over  and  making  it  better.    It  is  a  dream  as  old  as  the 
aspirations  of  men;  that  this  old  earth  of  ours,  hardly 
a  spot  of  which  has  not  been  wet  some  time  by  blood  or 
tears,  shall  some  day  become  the  home  of  a  rational  and 
happy  race,  when  men  will  no  longer  slay  to  steal.    Little 
by  little  the  world  itself,  for  what  man  has  done  to  it, 
is  becoming  a  better  place  to  live  in ;  and  because  of  this 
verj-  foresight  and  reason  and  discipline  of  man,  people 
havt  oecome  kinder;  that  is  to  say,  good  will  has  taken 
the  place  of  enmit> ,  and  cooperative  efifort  has  supplanted 
the  principle  of  strife,  and  civilized  and  intelligent  and 
scientific  government  has  to  a  degree  supplanted  that 
weird   and    fantastic   old-world   gospel   of   whimsicality 
and  drift,  and  we  are  only  beginning  to  dare  to  dream 
how  much  we  can  do  for  ourselves  and  posterity  through 
reason  and  ethics  embodied  in  our  political  institutions — 
through  a  Constitution  framed  and  construed  to  "pro- 
mote the  general  welfare." 

Strange  paradox!  The  scientist  has  become  dreamer. 
The  scientist  has  dared  to  dream  of  the  rational  order- 
ing of  a  hemisphere — a  half  world  made  over.  Some 
time  since,  Professor  Tyndall  gave  an  epoch-making 
lecture  on  "The  Scientific  Use  of  the  Imagination." 
Some  one,  doubtless,  is  about  to  write  on  the  imaginative 
use  of  science— let  us  say  applied  science — for  science 
like  all  other  good  angels  must  come  down  out  of  the 
clouds  to  bless  the  earth. 


290  THE  NEW  POLITICS 

This  matter  of  making  the  world  over  is  a  case  in  the 
direction  at  least  of  the  desertion  of  laissc::  faire  and 
the  application  of  intelligence  to  human  government.  It 
is  the  resurrection  of  a  patriotism  which  understands 
that  there  is  a  spirit  in  politics  higher  than  a  partisan 
spirit.  The  further  we  can  get  away  from  that  con- 
temptible motive  which  rules  American  politics  with 
scarcely  shadow  of  turning— "my  party,  right  or  wrong" 
— and  the  further  we  can  advance  the  principle  that 
human  affairs  can  and  ought  and  must  be  ordered  with 
scientil'ic  foresight,  and  with  naked  justice  for  the  com- 
mon good,  the  better  basis  we  shall  develop  for  a  just 
and  rational  government.  It  involves  reexamination  of 
our  politics  and  its  policies — of  our  whole  theory  of  life. 
Is  this  revolutionary?  Perhaps  it  is.  The  introduction 
of  rational  patriotism  into  American  politics  would  turn 
our  world  upside  down  at  once. 

But  perhaps  it  would  be  right  side  up  at  last. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  we  need  some  fundamental 
change. 

W'e  live  in  a  sordid  and  spiritless  age.  Frankly,  it 
is  a  di.sappointment.  We  are  not  justifying  our  inherit- 
ance, our  opportunities  or  ourselves.  We  are  produc- 
ing no  great  literature,  nor  art,  nor  philosophy.  Our 
religion  has  lost  its  hold  upon  us.  We  are  not  producing 
great  and  noble  men,  like  the  creators  and  demigods  of 
old.  We  later  Americans  have  surpassed  the  world  in 
nothing  but  in  our  speculators.  We  have  found  our  aspira- 
tions in  the  skyscrapers.  The  register  of  our  ideal  is 
the  cash  register.  This  is  our  distinction.  And  we  seem 
to  be  satisfied  with  it.    This  shall  be  our  indistinction. 


EPILOGUE 


291 


So  far  the  Western  Hemisphere  has  produced  no  first- 
rate  creative  intellectual  or  spiritual  genius.  If  it  is 
destined  some  day  to  achieve  something  which  can  be 
placed  alongside  the  great  creations  of  the  human  mind, 
such  as  long  ago  did  those  "architects  of  cathedrals  not 
made  with  hands,"  those  "sculptors  of  the  very  substance 
of  the  soul,"  "those  melodists  who  improvised  the  themes 
upon  which  subsequent  centuries  have  written  vari- 
ations," why  should  we  not  produce  the  architect  who 
shall  frame  such  plans  and  specifications  of  human  asso- 
ciations as  shall  clear  away  every  possible  hindrance  and 
raise  every  possible  help  to  noble  living  and  rational  rela- 
tions among  mankind  ? 

That  ethical  democracy  which  (let  us  hope)  is  destined 
some  day  to  create  a  congenial  abode  for  mankind  on 
this  Western  Hemisphere  cannot  be  conceived  apart  from 
the  life  of  that  eternal  and  ever-blessed  corner  in  the 
eastern  Mediterranean  where  Greece  and  Palestine — 
East  and  West  once  found  meeting — and  where  mind 
and  spirit  have  so  far  reached  their  most  perfect  flower. 
Far  to  the  North  the  Germans  approached  it  a  hundred 
years  ago,  then,  becoming  ".\mericanized."  lap.sed  into 
materialism  and  commercialism  again.  Why  has  the 
world  failed  of  what  Socrates  and  Jesus  might  have 
expected  of  it?  Has  it  not  been  because  the  wan 
ghosts  of  inspiration  have  striven  vainly  in  the  whirl- 
ing maelstrom  of  self-interest?  The  immortal  legacies 
of  Greece  and  Palestine  (which  those  would  banish 
from  the  curricula  of  our  youth  who  would  live  by 
greed  alone)  have  been  locked  up  in  Chancery  and 
are   not  available  assets   of  the   world  to   whom  they 


292  THE  NEW  POLITICS 

were  bequeathed — these  our  choicest  bequests  of  mind 
and  lieart. 

We  Americans  have  been  content  to  import  our  litera- 
ture, buy  our  art,  and  do  without  philosophy.  We  have 
shot  off  on  the  perverse  and  irrational  tangent  of  the 
miser's  instinct.  Our  dollar-heaping  instinct  has  gone 
mad.  No  honorable  and  worthy  future  lies  in  the  land 
toward  which  we  have  turned  our  faces  and  are  approach- 
ing with  an  automobile  speed.  Except  in  crass  and 
boastful  egoism  we  can  hardly  claim  to  be  the  flower 
of  all  ages  if  we  have  no  great  overwhelming,  all-absorb- 
ing national  aim  and  passion — if  we  are  content,  like  a 
flock  of  sparrows,  to  flit  aimlessly  and  twitter  glibly,  reck- 
ing nothing  of  the  future,  each  picking  his  own  seed, 
adding  little  to  the  instinct  but  that  of  the  magpie. 

There  was  once  a  time  when  the  world  was  young. 
As  long  before  Jesus  as  Columbus  lived  before  our  day, 
a  race  of  athletes  dwelt  by  the  blue  JEgean,  in  the  world's 
spingtime!  Dawntime  of  the  human  mind— birthday  of 
the  human  spirit!  We  still  linger  lovingly  among  the 
broken  ru  i  ns  of  Pheidias.  We  still  listen  to  the  interrupted 
accents  of  Demosthenes  and  Pericles.  Still  ^schylus, 
Sophocles,  Euripides,  ageless  voices,  sound  in  our  ears. 
Still  reason  speaks  to  the  modem  mind,  as  if  a  Prome- 
theus which  Socrates,  Plato,  Aristotle  first  unchained. 
Still  Homer,  the  unsurpassed,  leads  us  with  his  hosts  in 
the  banquet  rooms  and  pathways  of  the  gods.  And  we 
are  sitting  here  across  thirty  centuries,  old  and  gray  and 
witli  shaking  knees,  shivering  by  the  burnt  embers  on  a 
hearth  where  there  is  no  fire.  The  contemporary  of 
Pericles  could  have  met  on  the  streets  of  Athens  (not 


EPILOGUE 


293 


as  large  as  our  Omaha )  ^schylus,  Sophocles.  Euripides, 
Thucydides,  Herodotus,  Hippocrates  and  Democritus, 
Anaxagoras  and  Ar<-tophanes,  Pheidias  and  Socrates, 
and  Pericles. 

Gladstone  has  somewhere  said,  "To  pass  from  the 
study  of  Homer  to  the  business  of  the  world  is  to  step 
out  of  a  palace  of  enchantment  into  the  cold  gray  light  of 
a  polar  day."  Step  out  of  the  street  of  Athens  and  across 
the  courtyard  of  New  York.  Whom  do  you  meet?  You 
would  meet  captains  of  industry  under  the  red  flag 
and  captains  of  finance  flying  a  black  one.  These  are 
our  jewels. 

It  is  getting  cold  down  here.  There  is  no  fire  on  our 
hearth.  Is  this  Hesiod's  Iron  Age  or  his  Golden  Age, 
or  is  it  the  World's  Old  Age? 

The  Yankee  spirit  may  have  evolved  the  flower  of 
individualism,  but  it  has  not  exhausted  the  fertilities 
of  this  Western  Hemisphere.  The  modern  city  and 
Gehenna  of  Individualism  may  not  be  the  last  resource 
of  humanity. 

No,  the  destiny  of  the  Western  Hemisphere  lies  in  the 
direction  of  the  extension  and  establishment  of  ethical 
Democracy — of  the  people  and  for  the  people — all  the 
people;  and  away  from  the  despotism  of  a  financial 
syndicate  of  one  per  cent,  by  one  per  cent,  and  for  one 
per  cent.  Just  cause  for  hope  lies  in  the  fact  that  ninety- 
nine  per  cent  of  a  great  nation  are  stronger  than  one 
per  cent  in  force  and  morale  and  ninety-nine  per  cent 
and  God  must  win. 

The  Democracy  of  the  future  will  not  be  the  democ- 
racy of  Individualism.    It  will  synthesize  the  Greek  form. 


294 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


and  Cliristian  content.  A  true  and  satisfying  theory  of 
the  state  must  be  expanded  extensively  toward  sometliing 
hke  the  Greek  ideal  and  intensively  toward  the  Christian 
motive — and  motive  power.  To  state  this  synthesis  of 
Greek  statics  and  Christian  dynamics  will  be  the  supreme 
task  of  the  future  American  Thinker.  This  man  will 
come  to  us  as  Socrates  came  to  Athens.  He  may  leave, 
too.  as  Socrates  left  Athens.  He  will  find  among  us 
the  descendants  of  the  Sophist.s — that  opportunist  prod- 
uct of  democracy  and  demagogy — literary  and  intellec- 
tual tradesmen  or  prostitutes,  in  the  pay  of  the  interests 
or  the  parties  they  represent  for  hire,  men  who  whether 
they  be  legal  gentlemen  or  not  are  still  hired  attorneys 
in  fact,  retained  to  "strangle  the  rights  of  the  present 
with  the  fictions  of  the  past."  He  will  find  them  clever 
to  a  degree,  shrewd,  superficial,  plausible,  fluent,  and 
unprincipled,  proclaiming  for  a  consideration  subversive 
doctrines  and  beguiling  platitudes,  shunting  every  for- 
ward movement  to  the  side  track  of  a  counter-irritant. 
To  such  he  will  come — but  to  their  dupes  as  to  a  field 
waiting  for  the  husbandman. 

A  cool,  sane  thinker,  a  ripe  historian,  and  a  man  of 
faith,  he  will  glean  from  the  past  those  principles  the 
world  has  tried,  and  its  best  have  lived  by,  and  its  worst 
have  failed,  not  having  lived  by,  and  to  them  he  will 
weld  another  contribution.  ;!'e  world  well  knows  is  its 
best  and  has  not  tried.  Then  the  Americas  will  make 
a  new  beginning  in  the  history  of  mankind. 

The  Americas  should  be  the  arena  of  something 
new  and  incomparable  and  should  produce  from  her 
unexhausted  soil  a  new  type  of  men  and  of  man.     Per- 


EPILOGUE 


295 


haps  here  will  be  worked  out  the  new  Universalism — 
the  true  Cosmopolitanism — for  it  is  here  the  East  meets 
the  West.  That  was  a  beautiful  and  prophetic  fancy  of 
Alexander's  which  led  him  to  marry  a  hundred  Greek 
youth  to  a  hundred  Oriental  maidens,  but  the  true  union 
of  East  and  West  will  be  at  the  nuptials  of  Greek  mind 
and  Oriental  spirit — the  Aryan  form  with  the  Semitic 
content — and  will  result  in  a  new  offspring  of  Hellenic 
Ideal  and  Christian  motive.  May  these  two  streams  meet 
in  one  on  this  Western  Hemisphere  of  ours.  Then  may 
the  future  build  by  its  banks. 

The  attempt  to  make  the  world  what  it  ought  to  be 
is  not — to  a  few  unfashionable  people  at  least — as  absurd 
as  is  the  complacency  of  those  optimaniacs  who  believe 
that  "whatever  is,  is  right,"  and  who,  therefore,  worship 
the  status  quo.  A  few  dreamy  folk  are  beginning  to  feel 
that  perhaps  if  the  attempt  to  make  the  world  over  is 
absurd,  it  is  wicked  not  at  least  to  try  and  make  it 
better  than  it  is.  If  it  is  ever  to  be  made  over  or  even 
improved  it  will  never  be  done  by  itself,  but  by  the  attempt 
of  actual  men  and  women  through  their  rational  fore- 
sight and  will. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  man  has  been  making  the  world 
over  from  the  beginning  of  intelligence  in  men.  We 
are  what  we  are  to-day  better  than  what  we  were  some 
thousands  of  years  ago  because  intelligent  beings  have 
made  us  and  our  conditions  so.  We  are  what  we  are 
worse  than  what  we  were  for  lack  of  intelligence  applied 
to  our  own  affairs.  The  role  of  intelligence  has  not  been 
thought  out,  has  not  been  given  a  chance  in  our  institu- 
tions.    There  seems  to  be  a  destiny  for  human  intelli- 


296 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


gence  in  American  Politics.  It  is  beginning  the  "attempt 
to  make  the  world  over."  and  the  absurdity  of  not  mak- 
ing the  attempt  is  dawning  upon  us. 

Sir  Philip  Sidney  wrote  to  his  brother,  "When  >ou 
hear  of  a  good  war.  go  to  it."    Whoever  to-day.  endowed 
with  that  same  naive  and  sweet  militancy,  finds  himself 
bereft  of  other  v..cupation  might  do  well  to  remember 
that  we  still  live  in  an  age  of  wars  and  rumors  of  wars. 
If  there  must  be  war.  and  if  man  must  straggle  and  test 
his  limbs,  let  it  be  in  the  cause  which  when  it  wins  shall 
record  "that  war  shall  be  no  more."  There  is  good  fight- 
ing ahead  and  on  a  higher  plane  than  on  most  former 
fields  of  strife;  fighting  of  such  dignity  as  shall  nerve 
e\-ery  arm  that  would  draw  the  sword— fighting  that 
shall  wax  fiercer  with  every  decade  of  this  century,  and 
for  how  much  longer  does  not  matter  to  you  and  me  so 
far  as  fighting  purposes  are  concerned  after  we  have  laid 
down  our  arms.    Not  in  our  lifetime,  surely,  has  such  a 
bugle  blown ;  nor  has  so  shrill  a  note,  and  so  peremptory, 
awakened  men   from  sleep  as  now  sounds  the  call  in 
this  morn  of  new  battle  for  the  hosts  of  reason  to  line 
up  against  the  hordes  of  plunder  and  caprice.     Across 
the  battlefield  and  in  the  mist  we  may  hear  their  jangled 
voices  as  the  first   fury  spake  to  the  enchained   Pro- 
metheus.* 

We  are  the  ministers  of  pain  and  fear, 
And  disappointment  and  mistrust  and  hate, 
And  clinging  cries;  and  as  lean  dogs  pa'sue 
Thrn'  wood  and  lake  some  struck  and  sobbing  fawn. 
We  track  all  things  that  weep  and  bleed  and  live, 
When  the  Great  King  betrays  them  to  our  will. 
>  Shelley's  Prometheus  Unbound,  Act  i   Scene  i. 


EPILOGUE 


297 


Do  we  not  recognize  the  challenge?  Do  we  not  know 
the  certain  note  of  tliose  voices  of  the  progeny  of  Indi- 
vidualism? And  do  we  not  hear  in  the  background  of 
a  chorus  of  tragedy,  older  than  the  tragedy  of  the 
Greeks,  the  plaint  of  tiiose  masses  without  footing  on 
an  unfriendly  earth  doomed  to  strive  vainly  as  Sisyphus 
to  keep  those  they  love  from  famine  and  shame?  Shall 
we  pass  by  without  championing  this  one  unchanging 
cause — age-long  and  never  won,  but  always  winning — 
which  thrusts  itself  anew  upon  every  generation;  while 
chivalry  arises  each  time,  like  the  fabled  bird  from  its  own 
ashes,  to  strive  again  for  the  weak  against  the  strong? 

Let  the  nameless  and  self-seeking  herd  heap  together 
their  dollars  and  other  people's.  Let  them  glut  and  be 
drunken.  Let  them  rot  and  be  forgot.  But  in  the  world 
still  wanders  the  spirit  older  than  Pindar:  "Foras- 
much as  man  must  die,  wherefore  should  we  sit  vainly  in 
the  dark  through  a  didl  and  nameless  age  and  without 
lot  in  noble  deeds?" 

There  is  a  cause  which  may  yet  enlist  men  of  belief, 
and  create  a  new  chivalry  and  a  new  crusade.  It  is  the 
cause  of  the  tired,  the  throttled,  the  thwarted,  the  en- 
chained. Name  it  what  you  like,  in  whatever  form  or 
disguise  it  may  appear  to  any  age,  the  irresponsible  power 
of  one  man  over  another  man  is  the  antediluvian  dragon 
desecrating  our  sacred  liberties.  That  irresponsible 
power  is  enslaving  the  world  to-day.  Here  it  is  in  our 
midst  in  this,  our  boasted  and  alleged  American  democ- 
racy, which  is  not  a  democracy  as  long  as  it  is  run  on 
the  principle  of  free  and  unlimited  competition  between 
hawks  and  turtle  doves. 


298 


THE  NEW  POLITICS 


It  is  the  twentieth  century  aspect  of  the  immemorial 
instinct  of  prehensile  man. 

The  niclanclioly  shore  of  the  vast  age  behind  us  is 
strewn  with  the  wrecks  of  nations  that  have  gone  to 
pieces  on  the  promontories  of  Individualism,  and  others 
are  floating  like  huge  derelicts  among  the  peoples  of  the 
present  day.  Greece  could  not  survive  Individualism. 
Rome  could  not  survive  Individualism.  We  cannot  sur- 
vive Individualism. 

To  refuse  to  accept  the  lessons  of  history  is  to  pro- 
nounce judgment  against  our  own  sanity.  History  is  a 
stern  schoolmaster,  but  a  good  one,  and  to  make  over  and 
over  the  same  mistakes  is  to  grind  out  our  chance  in  a 
treadmill.  It  is  with  sorrow,  I  take  it,  that  the  German 
philosopher  said,  "Rulers,  statesmen,  and  nations  are 
wont  to  be  emphatically  commended  to  the  teaching 
which  experience  offers  in  history.  But  what  experience 
and  history  teach  is  this— that  people  and  the  govern- 
ments never  have  learned  anything  from  history,  or 
acted  on  principles  deduced  from  it.  The  pallid  shades 
of  memory  struggle  in  vain  with  the  life  and  freedom 
of  the  present"  ulegel). 

Greece  and  Rome  ^lave  played  their  parts  in  the  great 
human  drama,  and  we  have  read  the  pages  which  record 
their  downfall.  Our  own  history  is  not  yet  written,  for 
it  is  not  yet  made,  but  the  sober  man  can  see  familiar 
and  sinister  forces  at  work  in  our  midst — the  same  self- 
indulgence  in  luxuries  not  the  fruit  of  honest  toil,  the 
insane  and  inevitable  degeneracies  and  corruptions,  as 
when  Jugurtha  gained  the  Senate  by  bribery.  Even 
Cicero  attributed  the  prevailing  corruption  of  the  repub- 


epilogul: 


299 


lie  to  the  passions  of  Individualism.    He  tells  us  how  all 
l)nvate  affairs  were  decided  by  tlie  private  authority  of 
those  citizens  made  eniinenl  and  ix)wcrful  by  their  private 
wealth.      Long  before  Cicero.    Aristotle   bitterly   com- 
plained that   if   the  Greeks   could  only  work   together 
Greece  could  rule  the  world.    But  tiiere  came  a  day  when 
the  Greek  historians  were  to  be  her  tragedians,  for  in  the 
Greek  struggle  between  State  Rights  and  Nationalism, 
Individuali.sni  prevailed.    Read  the  melancholy  record  of 
Thucydides.     He  wrote  that  in  Sparta  and  Athens  the 
parties  not  in  power  each  connived  with  the  enemy  in 
the  other  state,  when  "the  tie  of  party  was  stronger  than 
the  tie  of  blood,"  and  "The  seal  of  faith  became  not 
the  divine  law  but  partnership  in  crime."    They  conniveil 
with  the  enemy  for  party  purposes,  as  some  came  fear- 
fully near  doing  in  our  late  war— sprung  with  treachery 
upon  us  in  the  Philippines.     "An  attitude  of  perfidious 
antagonism  everywhere  prevailed,"  continued  Thucydi- 
des, "each  man  looked  to  his  own  safety,"  and  "revolution 
gave  birth  to  every  form  of  wickedness."    It  was  the  des- 
tiny of  Greece  solely  because  of  Individualism  gone  mad, 
to  look  upon  a  promised  land  it  was  destined  never  to 
inherit.     And  this  was  simply  because  public  spirit  and 
patriotism  were  reduced  to  cinders  by  the  "Greek  fire" 
of  egoism,  from  which  neither  the  insight  nor  the  out- 
look of  her  individual  classicism  could  save  it. 

We  have  no  right  to  expect  more  of  atomism  than  that 
we,  too,  shall  go  to  pieces,  soon  or  late,  if  we  do  not 
abandon  the  fundamental  errors  which  underlie  our  life 
theories.  It  is  not  an  absurd  mission — this  mission  of 
the  new  Chivalry  and  the  new  Crusade.     It  is  not  an 


300 


rilK  NKW  POLITICS 


absurd  faith— this  faith  that  we  can  and  will  make  the 
world  a  better  place  to  live  in.  The  young  men  of 
America  to-day  are  seeking  a  new  Creed.  It  will  be  one 
which  was  partially  phrased  in  a  happy  sentence  of  Dr. 
August  Forel :  "Let  us  not  abandon  the  race  to  the  fatal- 
ism of  Allah:  let  us  create  it  ourselves." 


irnvr-JMai?!' 


